7#V 

HIGH  HEART 

BASIL"  KING 


' 


BOOKS  BY  THE 

AUTHOR  OF  "THE  INNER  SHRINE" 

[BASIL   KING] 

THE  HIGH   HEART.     Illustrated. 

THE   LIFTED   VEIL.     Illustrated. 

THE  SIDE  OF  THE  ANGELS.     Illustrated. 

THE  LETTER  OF  THE  CONTRACT.    Illustrated. 

THE  WAY  HOME.     Illustrated. 

THE  WILD  OLIVE.     Illustrated. 

THE  INNER  SHRINE.     Illustrated. 

THE  STREET  CALLED  STRAIGHT.     Illustrated. 

LET  NOT  MAN   PUT  ASUNDER.    Post  8vo. 

IN  THE  GARDEN  OF  CHARITY.    Poet  8vo. 

THE  STEPS  OF  HONOR.     Post  8vo. 

THE  GIANT'S  STRENGTH.    Post  8vo. 


HARPER  &  BROTHERS.  NEW  YORK 
ESTABLISHED  1817 


UNI? .  OF  CALIF.  LIBRARY.  LO9  ANGELES 


- 


"I'VE   BEEN   THINKING  A   GOOD   DEAL    DURING  THE    PAST    FEW   WEEKS 
OF  YOUR  LAW  OF   RlGHT  " 


THE  HIGH   HEART 


AUTHOR  OF 

"The  Inner  Shrine"  "The  Lifted  Veil"  Etc. 


ILLUSTRATED 


HARPER  y  BROTHERS   PUBLISHERS 
NEW    YORK    AND    LONDON 


THE  HIGH  HEART 


Copyright,  1917,  by  Harper  &  Brothers 
Printed  in  the  United  States  of  America 
Published  September,  1917 
H-B 


ILLUSTRATIONS 

"I'VE  BEEN  THINKING  A  GOOD  DEAL  DURING  THE 

PAST  PEW  WEEKS  OF  YOUR  LAW  OF  RIGHT"  .  .  Frontispiece 

THE  MARRIAGE  SHE  HAD  MISSED  WAS  ON  HER  MIND. 
IT  CREATED  AN  OBSESSION  OR  A  BROKEN  HEART, 
I  WASN'T  QUITE  SURE  WHICH Facing  p.  118 

I  SAW  A  MAN  AND  A  WOMAN  CONSUMED  WITH  LONGING 

FOR  EACH  OTHER "  192 

"I'VE  HAD  GREAT  TRIALS  .  .  .  I'VE  ALWAYS  BEEN 
MISJUDGED.  .  .  .  THEY'VE  PUT  ME  DOWN  AS 
HARD  AND  PROUD" "  410 


2130517 


THE    HIGH    HEART 


THE    HIGH    HEART 


CHAPTER  I 

I  COULD  not  have  lived  in  the  Brokenshire  circle  for 
nearly  a  year  without  recognizing  the  fact  that  in  the 
eyes  of  his  family  J.  Howard,  as  he  was  commonly  called 
by  the  world,  was  the  Great  Dispenser;  but  my  first  inti- 
mation that  he  meant  to  act  in  that  capacity  toward  me 
came  from  Larry  Strangways,  on  a  bright  July  morning 
during  the  summer  of  1913,  when  we  were  at  Newport. 
I  was  crossing  the  lawn,  going  toward  the  sea,  with  little 
Gladys  Rossiter,  to  whom  I  acted  as  companion  in  the 
hours  when  she  was  out  of  the  nursery,  with  a  specific  duty 
to  speak  French.  Larry  Strangways  was  tutor  to  the 
Rossiter  boy,  and  in  our  relative  positions  we  were  bound 
to  exercise  toward  each  other  a  good  deal  of  discretion. 
We  fraternized  with  constraint.  We  fraternized  because 
— well,  chiefly  because  we  couldn't  help  it.  In  the  mock- 
ing flare  of  his  eye,  which  contradicted  the  assumed  young 
gravity  of  his  manner,  I  read  an  opinion  of  the  Rossiter 
household  and  of  the  Brokenshire  family  in  general  similar 
to  my  own.  That  would  have  been  enough  for  mutual 
comprehension  had  there  been  no  instinctive  sympathies 
between  us;  but  there  were.  Allowing  for  the  fact  that 
we  were  of  different  nationalities,  we  had  the  same  kind  of 

i 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

antecedents;  we  spoke  the  same  kind  of  social  language; 
we  had  the  same  kind  of  aims  in  life.  Neither  of  us  re- 
garded the  position  in  the  Rossiter  establishment  as  a 
permanent  status.  He  was  a  tutor  merely  for  the  minute, 
while  feeling  his  way  to  that  first  rung  of  the  ladder  which 
I  was  convinced  would  lead  him  to  some  high  place  in 
American  life.  I  was  a  nursery  governess  only  on  the  way 
to  getting  married.  Matrimony  was  the  continent  toward 
which  more  or  less  consciously  I  had  been  traveling  for  five 
or  six  years,  without  having  actually  descried  a  port.  In 
this  connection  I  may  relate  a  little  incident  which  had 
taken  place  between  myself  and  Mrs.  Rossiter  after  I  had 
accepted  my  situation  in  her  family.  It  will  retard  my 
meeting  with  Larry  Strangways  on  the  lawn,  but  it  will 
throw  light  on  it  when  it  comes. 

I  had  met  Mrs.  Rossiter,  who  was  J.  Howard  Broken- 
shire's  daughter,  in  the  way  that  is  known  as  socially.  I 
never  understood  why  she  should  have  taken  a  house  for 
the  summer  in  our  quiet  old  town  of  Halifax,  unless  she 
was  urged  to  it  by  the  vague  restlessness  which  was  one  of 
her  characteristics.  But  there  she  was  in  a  roomy  old 
brick  mansion  I  had  known  all  my  life,  with  gardens  and 
conservatories  and  lawns  running  down  to  the  fiord  or 
back-harbor  which  we  call  the  Northwest  Arm,  and  a  fine 
English  air  of  seclusion.  In  our  easy,  neighborly  way  she 
was  well  received,  and  made  herself  agreeable.  She  flirted 
with  the  officers  of  both  Army  and  Navy  enough  to  create 
talk  without  raising  scandal;  and  she  was  sufficiently 
good-natured  to  be  civil  to  us  girls,  among  whom  she 
singled  me  out  for  attentions.  I  attributed  this  kindness 
to  our  recent  bereavement  and  financial  crash,  which  had 
left  me  poor  after  twenty-four  years  of  comfort,  and  was 
proportionately  grateful.  It  was  partly  gratitude,  and 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

partly  a  natural  love  of  children,  and  partly  a  special 
affection  for  the  exquisite  thing  herself,  that  drew  me  to 
little  Gladys  Rossiter,  to  playing  with  her  on  the  lawns, 
and  rowing  her  on  the  Arm,  and — as  I  had  been  for  three 
or  four  years  at  school  in  Paris — dropping  into  a  habit  of 
lisping  French  to  her.  As  the  child  liked  me  the  mother 
left  her  more  and  more  to  my  care,  gaining  thus  the  greater 
scope  for  her  innocuous  flirtations. 

It  was  toward  the  end  of  the  summer  that  Mrs.  Rossiter 
began  to  sigh,  "I  don't  know  how  I  shall  ever  tear  Gladys 
away  from  you,"  and,  "I  do  wish  you  were  coming  with 
us." 

I  wished  it  in  a  way  myself,  since  I  was  rather  at  a  loss 
as  to  what  to  do.  I  had  never  expected  to  have  to  earn  a 
living;  I  had  expected  to  get  married.  My  two  elder 
sisters,  Louise  and  Victoria,  had  married  easily  enough,  the 
one  in  the  Navy,  the  other  in  the  Army;  but  with  me  suit- 
ors seemed  to  lag.  They  came  and  saw — but  they  never 
went  far  enough  for  conquest.  I  couldn't  understand  it. 
I  was  not  stupid;  I  was  not  ugly;  and  I  was  generally 
spoken  of  as  having  charm.  But  there  was  the  fact  that  I 
was  twenty -four,  with  scarcely  a  penny,  and  drawing 
nearer  and  nearer  to  the  end  of  my  expedients.  I  was  not 
without  some  social  experience,  having  kept  house  in  a 
generous  way  for  my  widowed  father,  till  his  death,  some 
two  years  before  the  summer  when  I  met  Mrs.  Rossiter, 
brought  with  it  our  financial  collapse.  If  he  hadn't  left  a 
lot  of  old  books — Canadians,  the  pamphlets  were  called — 
and  rare  first  editions  of  all  kinds,  which  I  took  over  to 
London  and  sold  at  Sothbey's,  I  shouldn't  have  had  enough 
on  which  to  dress.  This  business  being  settled,  I  stayed 
as  long  as  I  decently  could  with  Louise  at  Southsea  and 
Victoria  at  Gibraltar;  but  no  man  asked  me  to  marry  him 

3 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

during  the  course  of  either  visit.  Had  there  been  a  sign 
of  any  such  possibility  the  sisters  would  have  put  them- 
selves out  to  keep  me;  but  as  nothing  warranted  them  in 
doing  so  they  let  me  go.  An  uncle  and  aunt  having  offered 
to  give  me  shelter  for  a  time  at  Halifax,  there  was  nothing 
left  for  it  but  to  go  back  and  renew  the  search  for  my  for- 
tunes in  my  native  town. 

When,  therefore,  Mrs.  Rossiter,  in  her  pretty,  helpless 
way  said  to  me  one  day,  "Why  shouldn't  you  come  with 
me,  dear  Miss  Adare?"  I  jumped  inwardly  at  the  oppor- 
tunity, though  I  smiled  and  replied  in  an  offhand  manner, 
"Oh,  that  would  have  to  be  discussed." 

Mrs.  Rossiter  admitted  the  truth  of  this  observation 
somewhat  pensively.  I  know  now  that  I  took  her  up 
with  too  much  promptitude. 

"Yes,  of  course,"  she  returned,  absently,  and  the  subject 
was  dropped. 

It  was  taken  up  again,  however,  and  our  bargain  made. 
On  Mrs.  Rossiter's  part  it  was  made  astutely,  not  in  the 
matter  of  money,  but  in  the  way  in  which  she  shifted  me 
from  the  position  of  a  friend  into  that  of  a  retainer.  It 
was  done  with  the  most  perfect  tact,  but  it  was  done.  I 
had  no  complaint  to  make.  What  she  wanted  was  a  nurs- 
ery governess.  My  own  first  preoccupations  were  food 
and  shelter  for  which  I  should  not  be  dependent  on  my  kin. 
We  came  to  the  incident  I  am  about  to  relate  very  gradu- 
ally; but  when  we  did  come  to  it  I  had  no  difficulty  in  see- 
ing that  it  had  been  in  the  back  of  Mrs.  Rossiter's  mind 
from  the  first.  It  had  been  the  cause  of  that  second 
thought  on  the  day  when  I  had  taken  her  up  too  readily. 

She  began  by  telling  me  about  her  father.  Beyond  the 
fact  that  some  man  who  seemed  to  be  specially  well  in- 
formed would  occasionally  say  with  awe,  "  She's  J.  Howard 

4 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

Brokenshire's  daughter,"  I  knew  nothing  whatever  about 
him.  But  I  began  to  see  him  now  as  the  central  sun  round 
whom  all  the  Brokenshires  revolved.  They  revolved 
round  him,  not  so  much  from  adoration  or  even  from 
natural  affection  as  from  some  tremendous  rotary  force  to 
which  there  was  no  resistance. 

Up  to  this  time  I  had  heard  no  more  of  American  life 
than  American  life  had  heard  of  me.  The  great  country 
south  of  our  border  was  scarcely  on  my  map.  The  Halifax 
in  which  I  was  born  and  grew  up  was  not  the  bustling 
Canadian  port,  dependent  on  its  hinterland,  it  is  to-day; 
it  was  an  outpost  of  England,  with  its  face  always  turned 
to  the  Atlantic  and  the  east.  My  own  face  had  been 
turned  the  same  way.  My  home  had  been  literally  a 
jumping-off  place,  in  that  when  we  left  it  we  never  expected 
to  go  in  any  but  the  one  direction.  I  had  known  Ameri- 
cans when  they  came  into  our  midst  as  summer  visitors, 
but  only  in  the  way  one  knows  the  stars  which  dawn  and 
fade  and  leave  no  trace  of  their  passage  on  actual  happen- 
ings. 

In  the  course  of  Mrs.  Rossiter's  confidences  I  began  to 
see  a  vast  cosmogony  beyond  my  own  personal  sun,  with 
J.  Howard  Brokenshire  as  the  pivot  of  the  new  universe. 
With  a  curious  little  shock  of  surprise  I  discovered  that 
there  could  be  other  solar  systems  besides  the  one  to  which 
I  was  accustomed,  and  that  Canada  was  not  the  whole  of 
North  America.  It  was  like  looking  through  a  telescope 
which  Mrs.  Rossiter  held  to  my  eye,  a  telescope  through 
which  I  saw  the  nebular  evidence  of  an  immense  society, 
wealthy,  confused,  more  intellectual  than  our  own,  but 
more  provincial  too,  perhaps;  more  isolated,  more  timid, 
more  conservative,  less  instinct  with  the  great  throb  of 
national  and  international  impulse  which  all  of  us  feel  who 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

live  on  the  imperial  red  line  and,  therefore,  less  daring,  but 
interesting  all  the  same.  I  began  to  glow  with  the  spirit 
of  adventure.  My  position  as  a  nursery  governess  pre- 
sented the  opportunities  not  merely  of  a  Livingstone  or  a 
Stanley,  but  of  a  Galileo  or  a  Copernicus. 

I  learned  that  Mrs.  Rossiter's  mother  had  been  a  Miss 
Brew,  and  that  the  Brews  were  a  great  family  in  Boston. 
She  was  the  mother  of  all  Mr.  Brokenshire's  children.  By 
looks  and  hints  and  sighs  I  gathered  from  Mrs.  Rossiter 
that  her  father's  second  marriage  had  been  a  trial  to  his 
family.  Not  that  there  had  been  any  social  descent.  On 
the  contrary,  the  present  Mrs.  Brokenshire  had  been 
Editha  Billing,  of  Philadelphia,  and  there  could  be  nothing 
better  than  that.  It  was  a  question  of  fitness,  of  necessity, 
of  age.  "There  was  no  need  for  him  to  marry  again  at 
all,"  Mrs.  Rossiter  complained.  "If  she'd  only  been  a 
middle-aged  woman,"  she  said  to  me  later,  "we  might  not 
have  felt.  .  .  .  But  she's  younger  than  Mildred  and  only  a 
year  or  two  older  than  I  am."  " Oh  yes,"  was  another  re- 
mark, "  she's  pretty ;  very  pretty . . .  but  I  often — wonder." 

She  described  her  brothers  and  her  sister  by  degrees. 
One  day  she  told  me  about  Mildred,  another  about  Jack, 
so  coming  toward  her  point.  Mildred  was  the  eldest  of  the 
family,  a  great  invalid.  She  had  been  thrown  from  her 
horse  years  before  while  hunting  in  England,  and  had 
injured  her  spine.  Jack  had  just  gone  into  business  with 
his  father,  and  had  married  Pauline  Gray,  of  Baltimore. 
Though  she  didn't  say  it  in  so  many  words  I  judged  that  it 
was  not  a  happy  marriage  in  the  highest  sense — that  Jack 
was  somewhat  light  of  love,  while  Pauline  "went  her  own 
way"  to  a  degree  that  made  her  talked  about.  It  was  not 
till  the  day  before  her  departure  for  New  York  that  Mrs. 
Rossiter  mentioned  her  younger  brother,  Hugh. 

6 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

I  was  helping  her  to  pack — that  is,  I  was  helping  the 
maid  while  Mrs.  Rossiter  directed.  Just  at  that  minuter 
however,  she  was  standing  up,  shaking  out  the  folds  of  an 
evening  dress.  She  seemed  to  peep  at  me  round  its  gar- 
nishings  as  she  said,  apropos  of  nothing: 

"There's  my  brother  Hugh.  He's  the  youngest  of  us 
all — just  twenty-six.  He  has  no  occupation  as  yet — he's 
just  studying  languages  and  things.  My  father  wants 
him  to  go  into  diplomacy."  As  I  caught  her  eye  there 
was  a  smile  in  it,  but  a  special  kind  of  smile.  It  was  the 
smile  to  go  with  the  sensible,  kindly,  coaxing  inflection 
with  which  she  said,  "You'll  leave  him  alone,  won't  you?" 

1  took  the  dress  out  of  her  hand  to  carry  it  to  the  maid 
in  the  next  room. 

"Leave  him  alone — how?" 

She  flushed  to  a  lovely  pink. 

"  Oh,  you  know  what  I  mean.     I  don't  have  to  explain." 

"You  mean  that  in  my  position  in 'the  household  it  will 
be  for  me  to — to  keep  out  of  his  way?" 

"It's  you  who  put  it  like  that,  dear  Miss  Adare — " 

"But  it's  the  way  you  want  me  to  put  it?" 

"Well,  if  I  admit  that  it  is?" 

"Then  I  don't  think  I  care  for  the  place." 

"What?" 

I  stated  my  position  more  simply. 

"If  I'm  to  have  nothing  to  do  with  your  brother,  Mrs. 
Rossiter,  I  don't  want  to  go." 

In  the  audacity  of  this  response  she  saw  something  that 
amused  her,  for,  snatching  the  dress  from  my  hand,  she 
ran  with  it  into  the  next  room,  laughing. 

During  the  following  winter  in  New  York  and  the  early 
summer  of  the  next  year  in  Newport  I  saw  a  good  deal  of 
Mr.  Hugh  Brokenshire,  but  never  with  any  violent  restric- 

2  7 


THE   HIGH   HEART 

tion  on  the  part  of  Mrs.  Rossiter.  I  say  violent  with 
intention,  for  she  did  intervene  when  she  could  do  so. 
Only  once  did  I  hear  that  she  knew  he  was  kind  to  me, 
and  that  was  from  Larry  Strangways.  It  was  an  observa- 
tion he  had  overheard  as  it  passed  from  Mrs.  Rossiter  to 
her  husband,  and  which,  in  the  spirit  of  our  silent  camara- 
derie, he  thought  it  right  to  hand  along. 

"I  can't  be  responsible  for  Hugh!"  Mrs.  Rossiter  had 
said.  "He's  old  enough  to  look  after  himself.  If  he 
wants  a  row  with  father  he  must  have  it;  and  he  seems  to 
me  in  a  fair  way  to  get  it.  If  he  does  it  will  be  his  own 
fault;  it  won't  he  Miss  Adare's." 

Fortified  by  this  acquittal,  I  went  on  my  way  as  quietly 
as  I  could,  though  I  cannot  say  I  was  free  from  pertur- 
bation. 

Perturbation  caught  me  like  a  whiff  of  wind  as  I  saw 
Larry  Strangways  deflect  from  his  course  across  the  lawn 
and  come  in  my  direction.  I  knew  he  wouldn't  have  done 
that  unless  he  felt  himself  authorized;  and  nothing  could 
give  him  the  authorization  but  something  in  the  way  of  a 
message  or  command.  To  all  observers  we  were  strangers. 
We  should  have  been  strangers  even  to  each  other  had  it 
not  been  for  that  freemasonry  of  caste,  that  secret  mutual 
comprehension,  which  transcends  speech  and  opportunities 
of  meeting,  and  which,  on  our  part,  at  least,  had  little 
expression  beyond  smiles  and  flying  glances. 

Of  course  he  was  good-looking.  It  has  often  seemed  to 
me  the  privilege  of  ineligible  men  to  be  tall  and  slim  and 
straight,  with  just  such  a  flash  in  the  eye  and  just  such  a 
beam  about  the  mouth  as  belonged  to  Larry  Strangways. 
Instinct  had  told  me  from  the  first  that  it  would  be  wise  for 
me  to  avoid  him,  while  prudence,  as  I  have  hinted,  gave 
him  the  same  indication  to  keep  at  a  distance  from  me. 

8 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

Luckily  he  didn't  live  in  the  house,  but  in  lodgings  in  the 
town.  We  hardly  ever  met  face  to  face,  and  then  only 
under  the  eye  of  Mrs.  Rossiter  when  each  of  us  mar- 
shaled a  pupil  to  lunch  or  to  tea. 

As  the  collie  at  his  heels  and  the  wire-haired  terrier  at 
ours  made  a  bee-line  for  each  other  the  children  kept  them 
Company,  which  gave  us  space  for  those  few  minutes  of 
privacy  the  occasion  apparently  demanded.  Though  he 
lifted  his  hat  formally,  and  did  his  best  to  preserve  the 
decorum  of  our  official  situations,  the  prank  in  his  eye 
flung  out  that  signal  to  which  I  could  never  do  anything 
but  respond. 

"I've  a  message  for  you,  Miss  Adare." 

I  managed  to  stammer  out  the  word  "Indeed?"  I 
couldn't  be  surprised,  and  yet  I  could  hardly  stand  erect 
from  fear. 

He  glanced  at  the  children  to  make  sure  they  were  out 
of  earshot. 

"  It's  from  the  great  man  himself — indirectly." 

I  was  so  near  to  collapse  that  I  could  only  say,4'  Indeed?'* 
again,  though  I  rallied  sufficiently  to  add,  "I  didn't  know 
he  was  aware  of  my  existence." 

"Apparently  he  wasn't — but  he  is  now.  He  desires  you 
— I  give  you  the  verb  as  Spellman,  the  secretary,  passed  it 
on  to  me — he  desires  you  to  be  in  the  breakfast  loggia  here 
at  three  this  afternoon." 

I  could  barely  squeak  the  words  out: 

"  Does  he  mean  that  he's  coming  to  see  me?" 

"That,  it  seems,  isn't  necessary  for  you  to  know.  Your 
business  is  to  be  there.  There's  quite  a  subtle  point  in  the 
limitation.  Being  there,  you'll  see  what  will  happen  next. 
It  isn't  good  for  you  to  be  told  too  much  at  a  time." 

My  spirit  began  to  revive. 

9 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

"I'm  not  his  servant.  I'm  Mrs.  Rossiter's.  If  he 
wants  anything  of  me  why  doesn't  he  say  so  through 
her?" 

"  'Sh,  'sh,  Miss  Adare !  You  mustn't  dictate  to  God,  or 
say  he  should  act  in  this  way  or  in  that." 

"But  he's  not  God." 

"Oh,  as  to  that — well,  you'll  see."  He  added,  with  his 
light  laugh,  "What  will  you  bet  that  I  don't  know  what 
it's  all  about?" 

"Oh,  I  bet  you  do." 

"Then,"  he  warned,  "you're  up  against  it." 

I  was  getting  on  my  mettle. 

"Perhaps  I  am — but  I  sha'n't  be  alone." 

"No;  but  you'll  be  made  to  feel  alone." 

"Even  so—" 

As  I  was  anxious  to  keep  from  boasting  beforehand,  I 
left  the  sentence  there. 

"Yes?"  he  jogged.     "Even  so— what?" 

"Oh,  nothing.  I  only  mean  that  I'm  not  afraid  of  him 
— that  is,"  I  corrected,  "I'm  not  afraid  of  him  fundamen- 
tally." 

He  laughed  again.  "Not  afraid  of  him  fundamentally! 
That's  fine !"  Something  in  his  glance  seemed  to  approve 
of  me.  "  No,  I  don't  believe  you  are ;  but  I  wonder  a  little 
why  not." 

I  reflected,  gazing  beyond  his  shoulder,  down  the  vel- 
vety slopes  of  the  lawn,  and  across  the  dancing  blue  sea  to 
the  islets  that  were  mere  specks  on  the  horizon.  In  the 
end  I  decided  to  speak  soberly.  "  I'm  not  afraid  of  him," 
I  said  at  last,  "because  I've  got  a  sure  thing." 

"You  mean  him?" 

I  knew  the  reference  was  to  Hugh  Brokenshire.  "If  I 
mean  him,"  I  replied,  after  a  minute's  thinking,  "it's  only 

10 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

as  the  greater  includes  the  less,  or  as  the  universal  includes 
everything." 

He  whistled  under  his  breath. 

"  Does  that  mean  anything?    Or  is  it  just  big  talk?" 

Half  shy  and  half  ashamed  of  going  on  with  what  I  had 
to  say,  I  was  obliged  to  smile  ruefully. 

"  It's  big  talk  because  it's  a  big  principle.  I  don't  know 
how  to  manage  it  with  anything  small. ' '  I  tried  to  explain 
further,  knowing  that  my  dark  skin  flushed  to  a  kind  of 
dahlia-red  while  I  was  doing  so.  "I  don't  know  whether 
I've  read  it — or  whether  I  heard  it — or  whether  I've  just 
evolved  it — but  I  seem  to  hare  got  hold  of — of — don't 
laugh  too  hard,  please — of  the  secret  of  success." 

"Good  for  you!  I  hope  you're  not  going  to  be  stingy 
with  it." 

"No;  I'll  tell  you — partly  because  I  want  to  talk  about 
it  to  some  one,  and  just  at  present  there's  no  one  else." 

"Thanks!" 

"The  secret  of  success,  as  I  reason  it  out,  must  be  some- 
thing that  will  protect  a  weak  person  against  a  strong 
one — me,  for  instance,  against  J.  Howard  Brokenshire — 
and  work  everything  out  all  right.  There,"  I  cried,  "I've 
said  the  word." 

"You've  said  a  number.    Which  is  the  one ?" 

Anxiety  not  to  seem  either  young  or  didactic  or  a  prig 
made  my  tone  apologetic. 

"There's  such  a  thing  as  Right,  written  with  a  capital. 
If  I  persist  in  doing  Right — still  with  a  capital — then 
nothing  but  right  can  come  of  it." 

"Oh,  can't  it!" 

"  I  know  it  sounds  like  a  platitude — " 

"No,  it  doesn't,"  he  interrupted,  rudely,  "because  a 
platitude  is  something  obviously  true;  and  this  isn't." 

ii 


THE   HIGH    HEART 

I  felt  some  relief. 

"Oh,  isn't  it?    Then  I'm  glad.     I  thought  it  must  be." 

"You  won't  go  on  thinking  it.  Suppose  you  do  right 
and  somebody  else  does  wrong?" 

"Then  I  should  be  willing  to  back  my  way  against  his. 
Don't  you  see?  That's  the  point.  That's  the  secret  I'm 
telling  you  about.  Right  works;  wrong  doesn't." 

"That's  all  very  fine—" 

"It's  all  very  fine  because  it's  so.  Right  is — what's  the 
word  William  James  put  into  the  dictionary?" 

He  suggested  pragmatism. 

"That's  it.  Right  is  pragmatic,  which  I  suppose  is  the 
same  thing  as  practical.  Wrong  must  be  impractical;  it 
must  be — " 

"I  shouldn't  bank  too  confidently  on  that  in  dealing 
with  the  great  J.  Howard." 

"But  I'm  going  to  bank  on  it.  It's  where  I'm  to  have 
him  at  a  disadvantage.  If  he  does  wrong  while  I  do  right, 
why,  then  I'll  get  him  on  the  hip." 

"How  do  you  know  he's  going  to  do  wrong?" 

"I  don't.     I  merely  surmise  it.     If  he  does  right — " 

"He'll  get  you  on  the  hip." 

"No,  because  there  can't  be  a  right  for  him  which  isn't 
a  right  for  me.  There  can't  be  two  rights,  each  contrary 
to  the  other.  That's  not  in  common  sense.  If  he  does 
right  then  I  shall  be  safe — whichever  way  I  have  to  take  it. 
Don't  you  see?  That's  where  the  success  comes  in  as  well 
as  the  secret.  It  can't  be  any  other  way.  Please  don't 
think  I'm  talking  in  what  H.  G.  Wells  calls  the  tin-pot 
style — but  one  must  express  oneself  somehow.  I'm  not 
afraid,  because  I  feel  as  if  I'd  got  something  that  would 
hang  about  me  like  a  magic  cloak.  Of  course  for  you — a 
man — a  magic  cloak  may  not  be  necessary;  but  I  assure 

12 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

you  that  for  a  girl  like  me,  out  in  the  world  on  her 
own — " 

He,  too,  sobered  down  from  his  chaffing  mood. 

"But  in  this  case  what  is  going  to  be  Right — written 
with  a  capital?" 

I  had  just  time  to  reply,  "Oh,  that  I  shall  have  to  see!" 
when  the  children  and  dogs  came  scampering  up  and  our 
conversation  was  over. 

On  returning  from  my  walk  with  Gladys  I  informed  Mrs. 
Rossiter  of  the  order  I  had  received.  I  could  see  her  dis- 
tressed look  in  the  mirror  before  which  she  sat  doing  some- 
thing to  her  hair. 

"Oh,  dear!"  she  sighed,  "it's  just  what  I  was  afraid  of. 
Now  I  suppose  he'll  want  you  to  leave." 

"That  is,  he'll  want  you  to  send  me  away." 

"It's  the  same  thing,"  she  said,  fretfully,  and  sat  with 
hands  lying  idly  in  her  lap. 

She  stared  out  of  the  window.  It  was  a  large  bow  win- 
dow, with  a  window-seat  cushioned  in  flowered  chintz. 
Couch,  curtains,  and  easy-chairs  reproduced  this  Enchant- 
ed Garden  effect,  forming  a  paradisiacal  background  for 
her  intensely  modern  and  somewhat  neurotic  prettiness. 
I  had  seen  her  sit  by  the  half-hour  like  this,  gazing  over  the 
shrubberies,  lawns,  and  waves,  with  a  yearning  in  her  eyes 
like  that  of  some  twentieth-century  Blessed  Damozel. 

It  was  her  unhappy  hour  of  the  day.  Between  getting; 
up  at  nine  or  ten  and  descending  languidly  to  lunch,  life 
was  always  a  great  load  to  her.  It  pressed  on  one  too  weak 
to  bear  its  weight  and  yet  too  conscientious  to  throw  it  off  „ 
though,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  this  melancholy  was  only  the 
reaction  of  her  nerves  from  the  mild  excitements  of  the. 
night  before.  I  was  generally  with  her  during  some  por- 
tion of  this  forenoon  time,  reading  her  notes  and  answering 

13 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

them,  speaking  for  her  at  the  telephone,  or  keeping  her 
company  and  listening  to  her  confidences  while  she  nibbled 
without  appetite  at  a  bit  of  toast  and  sipped  her  tea. 

To  put  matters  on  the  common  footing  I  said: 

'"Is  there  anything  you'd  like  me  to  do,  Mrs.  Rossiter?" 

'She  ignored  this  question,  murmuring  in  a  way  she  had, 
through  half-closed  lips,  as  if  mere  speech  was  more  than 
she  was  equal  to:  "And  just  when  we  were  getting  on  so 
well — and  the  way  Gladys  adores  you — " 

"And  the  way  I  adore  Gladys." 

"Oh,  well,  you  don't  spoil  the  child,  like  that  Miss 
'Phips.  I  suppose  it's  your  sensible  English  bringing 
up." 

"Not  English,"  I  interrupted. 

"Canadian  then.  It's  almost  the  same  thing."  She 
went  on  without  transition  of  tone:  "Mr.  Millinger  was 
there  again  last  night.  He  was  on  my  left.  I  do  wish 
they  wouldn't  keep  putting  him  next  to  me.  It  makes 
everything  look  so  pointed — especially  with  Harry  Scott 
glowering  at  me  from  the  other  end  of  the  table.  He 
hardly  spoke  to  Daisy  Burke,  whom  he'd  taken  in.  I 
must  say  she  was  a  fright.  And  Mr.  Millinger  so  impru- 
dent! I'm  really  terrified  that  Jim  will  hear  gossip  when 
he  comes  down  from  New  York — or  notice  something." 
There  was  the  slightest  dropping  of  the  soft  fluting  voice 
as  she  continued :  "I've  never  pretended  to  love  Jim  Rossi- 
ter more  than  any  man  I've  ever  seen.  That  was  one  of 
papa's  matches.  He's  a  born  match-maker,  you  know, 
just  as  he's  a  born  everything  else.  I  suppose  you  didn't 
think  of  that.  But  since  I  am  Jim's  wife — " 

As  I  was  the  confidante  of  what  she  called  her  affairs — 
a  rdle  for  which  I  was  qualified  by  residence  in  British 
garrison  towns — I  interposed  diplomatically,  "But  so  long 

14 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

as  Mr.  Millinger  hasn't  said  anything,  not  any  more  than 
Mr.  Scott—" 

"Oh,  if  I  were  to  allow  men  to  say  things,  where  should 
I  be?  You  can  go  far  with  a  man  without  letting  him 
come  to  that.  It's  something  I  should  think  you'd  have 
known — with  your  sensible  bringing  up — and  the  heaps  of 
men  you  had  there  in  Halifax — and  I  suppose  at  Southsea 
and  Gibraltar,  too."  It  was  with  a  hint  of  helpless  com- 
plaint that  she  added,  "You  remember  that  I  asked  you 
to  leave  him  alone,  now  don't  you?" 

"Oh,  I  remember — quite.  And  suppose  I  did — and  he 
didn't  leave  me  alone?" 

"Of  course  there's  that,  though  it  won't  have  any  effect 
on  papa.  You  are  unusual,  you  know.  Only  one  man  in 
five  hundred  would  notice  it ;  but  there  always  is  that  man. 
It's  what  I  was  afraid  of  about  Hugh  from  the  first. 
You're  different — and  it's  the  sort  of  thing  he'd  see." 

"Different  from  what?"  I  asked,  with  natural  curiosity. 

Her  reply  was  indirect. 

"  Oh,  well,  we  Americans  have  specialized  too  much  on 
the  girl.  You're  not  half  as  good-looking  as  plenty  of 
other  girls  in  Newport,  and  when  it  comes  to  dress — " 

"Oh,  I'm  not  in  their  class,  I  know." 

"No;  it's  what  you  seem  not  to  know.  You  aren't  in 
their  class — but  it  doesn't  seem  to  matter.  If  it  does 
matter,  it's  rather  to  your  advantage." 

"I'm  afraid  I  don't  see  that." 

"No,  you  wouldn't.  You're  not  sufficiently  subtle. 
You're  really  not  subtle  at  all,  in  the  way  an  American  girl 
would  be."  She  picked  up  the  thread  she  had  dropped. 
"  The  fact  is  we've  specialized  so  much  on  the  girl  that  our 
girls  are  too  aware  of  themselves  to  be  wholly  human. 
They're  like  things  wound  up  to  talk  well  and  dress  well 

IS 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

and  exhibit  themselves  to  advantage  and  calculate  their 
effects — and  lack  character.  We've  developed  the  very 
highest  thing  in  exquisite  girl-mechanics — a  work  of  art 
that  has  everything  but  a  soul."  She  turned  half  round 
to  where  I  stood  respectfully,  my  hands  resting  on  the 
back  of  an  easy-chair.  She  was  lovely  and  pathetic  and 
judicial  all  at  once.  "The  difference  about  you  is  that 
you  seem  to  spring  right  up  out  of  the  soil  where  you're 
standing — just  like  an  English  country  house.  You  be- 
long to  your  background.  Our  girls  don't.  They're  too 
beautiful  for  their  background,  too  expensive,  too  pro- 
duced. Take  any  group  of  girls  here  in  Newport — they're 
no  more  in  place  in  this  down-at-the-heel  old  town  than 
a  flock  of  parrakeets  in  a  New  England  wood.  It's  really 
inartistic,  though  we  don't  know  it.  You're  more  of  a 
woman  and  less  of  a  lovely  figurine.  But  that  won't 
appeal  to  papa.  He  likes  figurines.  Most  American 
men  do.  Hugh  is  an  exception,  and  I  was  afraid  he'd  see 
in  you  just  what  I've  seen  myself.  But  it  won't  go  down 
with  papa." 

"If  it  goes  down  with  Hugh — "  I  began,  meekly. 

"Papa  is  a  born  match-maker,  which  I  don't  suppose 
you  know.  He  made  my  match  and  he  made  Jack's.  Oh, 
we're — we're  satisfied  now — in  a  way;  and  I  suppose  Hugh 
will  be,  too,  in  the  long  run."  I  wanted  to  speak,  but  she 
tinkled  gently  on:  "Papa  has  his  designs  for  him,  which  I 
may  as  well  tell  you  at  once.  He  means  him  to  marry 
Lady  Cissie  Boscobel.  She's  Lord  Goldborough's  daugh- 
ter, and  papa  and  he  are  very  intimate.  Papa  knew  him 
when  we  lived  in  England  before  grandpapa  died.  Papa 
has  done  things  for  him  in  the  American  money-market, 
and  when  we're  in  England  he  does  things  for  us.  Two  or 
three  of  our  men  have  married  earls'  daughters  during  the 

16 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

last  few  years,  and  it  hasn't  turned  out  so  badly.  Papa 
doesn't  want  not  to  be  in  the  swim." 

"Does" — I  couldn't  pronounce  Hugh's  name  again — 
"does  your  brother  know  of  Mr.  Brokenshire's  inten- 
tions?" 

"Yes.  I  told  him  so.  I  told  him  when  I  began  to  see 
that  he  was  noticing  you." 

"And  may  I  ask  what  he  said?" 

"It  would  be  no  use  telling  you  that,  because,  whatever 
he  said,  he'd  have  to  do  as  papa  told  him  in  the  end." 

"But  suppose  he  doesn't?" 

"You  can't  suppose  he  doesn't.  He  will.  That's  all 
that  can  be  said  about  it."  She  turned  fully  round  on  me, 
gazing  at  me  with  the  largest  and  sweetest  and  tenderest 
eyes.  "As  for  you,  dear  Miss  Adare,"  she  murmured, 
sympathetically,  "when  papa  comes  to  see  you  this  after- 
noon, as  apparently  he  means  to  do,  he'll  grind  you  to 
powder.  If  there's  anything  smaller  than  powder  he'll 
grind  you  to  that.  After  he's  gone  we  sha'n't  be  able  to 
find  you.  You'll  be  dust." 


CHAPTER  II 

AT  five  minutes  to  three,  precisely,  I  took  my  seat  in 
the  breakfast  loggia. 

The  front  of  the  house  with  the  garden  looked  toward 
Ochre  Point  Avenue.  The  so-called  breakfast  loggia  was 
thrown  out  from  the  dining-room  in  the  direction  of  the 
sea.  Here  the  family  and  their  guests  could  gather  on 
warm  evenings,  and  in  fine  weather  eat  in  the  open  air. 
Paved  with  red  tiles,  it  was  furnished  with  a  long  oak  table, 
ornately  carved,  and  some  heavy  old  oak  chairs  that  might 
have  come  from  a  monastery.  Steamer  chairs  and  wicker 
easy-chairs  were  scattered  on  the  grass  outside.  On  the 
left  the  loggia  was  screened  from  the  neighboring  property 
by  a  hedge  of  rambler  roses  that  now  ran  the  gamut  of 
shades  from  crimson  to  sea-shell  pink,  while  on  the  right  it 
commanded  a  view  of  the  two  terraces  supporting  the 
house,  with  their  long  straight  lines  of  flowers.  The  house 
itself  had  been  built  piecemeal,  and  was  now  a  low,  ram- 
bling succession  of  pavilions  or  corps  de  logis,  to  which  a 
series  of  rose-colored  awnings  gave  the  only  unifying 
principle. 

Just  now  it  was  a  house  deserted  by  every  one  but  the 
servants  and  myself.  Mrs.  Rossiter,  having  gone  out  to 
luncheon,  had  been  careful  not  to  return,  and  even  the 
children  had  been  sent  over  to  Mrs.  Jack  Brokenshire,  on 
the  pretext  of  playing  with  her  baby,  but  really  to  be  out 

18 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

of  the  way.  From  Hugh  I  had  had  no  sign  of  life  since  the 
previous  afternoon.  As  to  whether  his  father  was  coming 
as  his  enemy,  his  master,  or  his  interpreter  I  could  do 
nothing  but  conjecture. 

But  as  far  as  I  could  I  kept  myself  from  conjecturing, 
holding  my  faculties  in  suspense.  I  had  enough  to  do  in 
assuring  myself  that  I  was  not  afraid — fundamentally. 
Superficially  I  was  terrified.  I  should  have  been  terrified 
had  the  great  man  but  passed  me  in  the  hall  and  cast  a  look 
at  me.  He  had  passed  me  in  the  hall  on  occasions,  but  as 
he  had  never  cast  the  look  I  had  escaped.  He  had  struck 
me  then  as  a  master  of  that  art  of  seeing  without  seeing 
which  I  had  hitherto  thought  of  as  feminine.  Even  when 
he  stopped  and  spoke  to  Gladys  he  seemed  not  to  know 
that  I  occupied  the  ground  I  stood  on.  I  cannot  say  I 
enjoyed  this  treatment.  I  was  accustomed  to  being  seen. 
Moreover,  I  had  lived  with  people  who  were  courteous  to 
inferiors,  however  cavalier  with  equals.  The  great  J. 
Howard  was  neither  courteous  nor  cavalier  toward  me,  for 
the  reason  that  where  I  was  he  apparently  saw  nothing 
but  a  vacuum. 

Out  to  the  loggia  I  took  my  work-basket  and  some  sew- 
ing. Having  no  idea  from  which  of  the  several  approaches 
my  visitor  would  come  on  me,  I  drew  up  one  of  the  heavy 
arm-chairs  and  sat  facing  toward  the  sea.  With  the  basket 
on  the  table  beside  me  and  my  sewing  in  my  hands  I  felt 
indefinably  more  mistress  of  myself. 

It  was  a  still  afternoon  and  hot,  with  scarcely  a  sound 
but  the  pounding  of  the  surf  on  the  ledges  at  the  foot  of 
the  lawn.  Though  the  sky  was  blue  overhead,  a  dark  low 
bank  rose  out  of  the  horizon,  foretelling  a  change  of  wind 
with  fog.  In  the  air  the  languorous  scent  of  roses  and 
honeysuckle  mingled  with  the  acrid  tang  of  the  ocean. 

19 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

I  felt  extraordinarily  desolate.  Not  since  hearing  what 
the  lawyer  had  told  me  on  the  afternoon  of  my  father's 
funeral  had  I  seemed  so  entirely  alone.  The  fact  that  for 
nearly  twenty-four  hours  Hugh  had  got  no  word  to  me 
threw  me  back  upon  myself.  "You'll  be  made  to  feel 
alone,"  Mr.  Strangways  had  said  in  the  morning;  and  I 
was.  I  didn't  blame  Hugh.  I  had  purposely  left  the 
matter  in  such  a  way  that  there  was  nothing  he  could  say 
or  do  till  after  his  father  had  spoken.  He  was  probably 
waiting  impatiently;  I  had,  indeed,  no  doubt  about  that; 
but  the  fact  remained  that  I,  a  girl,  a  stranger,  in  a  certain 
sense  a  foreigner,  was  to  make  the  best  of  my  situation 
without  help.  J.  Howard  Brokenshire  could  grind  me  te 
powder — when  he  had  gone  away  I  should  be  dust. 

"If  I  do  right,  nothing  but  right  can  come  of  it." 

The  maxim  was  my  only  comfort.  By  sheer  force  of 
repeating  it  I  got  strength  to  thread  my  needle  and  go  on 
with  my  seam,  till  on  the  stroke  of  three  the  dread  per- 
sonage appeared. 

I  saw  him  from  the  minute  he  mounted  the  steps  that 
led  up  from  the  Cliff  Walk  to  Mr.  Rossiter's  lawn.  He  was 
accompanied  by  Mrs.  Brokenshire,  while  a  pair  of  grey- 
hounds followed  them.  Having  reached  the  lawn,  they 
crossed  it  diagonally  toward  the  loggia.  Because  of  the 
heat  and  the  up-hill  nature  of  the  way,  they  advanced 
slowly,  which  gave  me  leisure  to  observe. 

Mrs.  Brokenshire's  presence  had  almost  caused  my  heart 
to  stop  beating.  I  could  imagine  no  motive  for  her  coming 
but  one  I  refused  to  accept.  If  the  mission  was  to  be  un- 
friendly, she  surely  would  have  stayed  away;  but  that  it 
could  be  other  than  unfriendly  was  beyond  my  strength  to 
hope. 

I  had  never  seen  her  before  except  in  glimpses  or  at  a 

20 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

distance.  I  noticed  now  that  she  was  a  little  thing,  looking 
the  smaller  for  the  stalwart  six-foot-two  beside  which  she 
walked.  She  was  in  white  and  carried  a  white  parasol.  I 
saw  that  her  face  was  one  of  the  most  beautiful  in  features 
and  finish  I  had  ever  looked  into.  Each  trait  was  quite 
amazingly  perfect.  The  oval  was  perfect;  the  coloring 
was  perfect;  mouth  and  nose  and  forehead  might  have 
been  made  to  a  measured  scale.  The  finger  of  personified 
Art  could  have  drawn  nothing  more  exquisite  than  the  arch 
of  the  eyebrows,  or  more  delicately  fringed  than  the  lids. 
It  might  have  been  a  doll's  face,  or  the  face  for  the  cover 
of  an  American  magazine,  had  it  not  been  saved  by  some- 
thing I  hadn't  the  time  to  analyze,  though  I  was  later  to 
know  what  it  was. 

As  for  him,  he  was  as  perfect  in  his  way  as  she  in  hers. 
When  I  say  that  he  wore  white  shoes,  white-duck  trousers, 
a  navy-blue  jacket,  and  a  yachting-cap  I  give  no  idea  of 
the  something  noble  in  his  personality.  He  might  have 
been  one  of  the  more  ornamental  Italian  princes  of  im- 
memorial lineage.  A  Jove  with  a  Vandyke  beard  one 
could  have  called  him,  and  if  you  add  to  that  the  concep- 
tion of  Jove  the  Thunderer,  Jove  with  the  look  that  could 
strike  a  man  dead,  perhaps  the  description  would  be  as 
good  as  any.  He  was  straight  and  held  his  head  high. 
He  walked  with  a  firm  setting  of  his  feet  that  impressed 
you  with  the  fact  that  some  one  of  importance  was  coming. 

It  is  not  my  purpose  to  speak  of  this  man  from  the  point 
of  view  of  the  ordinary  member  of  the  public.  Of  that  I 
know  next  to  nothing.  I  was  dimly  aware  that  his  wealth 
and  his  business  interests  made  him  something  of  a  public 
character;  but  apart  from  having  heard  him  mentioned  as 
a  financier  I  could  hardly  have  told  what  his  profession 
was.  So,  too,  with  questions  of  morals.  I  have  been 

21 


THE   HIGH   HEART 

present  when,  by  hints  rather  than  actual  words,  he  was 
introduced  as  a  profligate  and  a  hypocrite;  and  I  have  also 
known  people  of  good  judgment  who  upheld  him  both  as 
man  and  as  citizen.  On  this  subject  no  opinion  of  mine 
would  be  worth  giving.  I  have  always  relegated  the  mat- 
ter into  that  limbo  of  disputed  facts  with  which  I  have 
nothing  to  do.  I  write  of  him  only  as  I  saw  him  in  daily 
life,  or  at  least  in  direct  intercourse,  and  with  that  my 
testimony  must  end.  Other  people  have  been  curious 
with  regard  to  those  aspects  of  his  character  on  which  I 
can  throw  no  light.  To  me  he  became  interesting  chiefly 
because  he  was  one  of  those  men  who  from  a  kind  of  naive 
audacity,  perhaps  an  unthinking  audacity,  don't  hesitate 
to  play  the  part  of  the  Almighty. 

When  they  drew  near  enough  to  the  loggia  I  stood  up, 
my  sewing  in  my  hand.  The  two  greyhounds,  who  had 
outdistanced  them,  came  sniffing  to  the  threshold  and 
stared  at  me.  I  felt  myself  an  object  to  be  stared  at, 
though  I  had  taken  pains  with  my  appearance  and  knew 
that  I  was  neat.  Neatness,  I  may  say  in  passing,  is  my 
strong  point.  Where  many  other  girls  can  stand  expen- 
sive dressing  I  am  at  my  best  when  meticulously  tidy. 
The  shape  of  my  head  makes  the  simplest  styles  of  doing 
the  hair  the  most  distinguished.  My  figure  lends  itself 
to  country  clothes  and  the  tailor-made.  In  evening  dress 
I  can  wear  the  cheapest  and  flimsiest  thing,  so  long  as  it  is 
dependent  only  on  its  lines.  I  was  satisfied,  therefore, 
with  the  way  I  looked,  and  when  I  say  I  felt  myself  an 
object  to  be  stared  at  I  speak  only  of  my  consciousness  of 
isolation. 

I  cannot  affirm,  however,  that  J.  Howard  Brokenshire 
stared  at  me.  He  stared;  but  only  at  the  general  effects 
in  which  I  was  a  mere  detail.  The  loggia  being  open  on 

22 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

all  sides,  he  paused  for  half  a  second  to  take  it  and  its  con- 
tents in.  I  went  with  the  contents.  I  looked  at  him; 
but  nothing  in  the  glance  he  cast  over  me  recognized  me  as 
a  human  being.  I  might  have  been  the  table;  I  might 
have  been  the  floor;  for  him  I  was  hardly  in  existence. 

I  wonder  if  you  have  ever  stood  under  the  gaze  of  one 
who  considered  you  too  inferior  for  notice.  The  sensation 
is  quite  curious.  It  produces  not  humiliation  or  resent- 
ment so  much  as  an  odd  apathy.  You  sink  in  your  own 
sight;  you  go  down;  you  understand  that  abjection  of 
slaves  which  kept  them  from  rising  against  their  masters. 
Negatively  at  least  you  concede  the  right  that  so  treats 
you.  You  are  meek  and  humble  at  once;  and  yet  you  can 
be  strong.  I  think  I  never  felt  so  strong  as  when  I  saw  that 
cold,  deep  eye,  which  was  steely  and  fierce  and  most  incon- 
sistently sympathetic  all  in  one  quick  flash,  sweep  over  me 
and  pay  me  no  attention.  Ecce  Femina  I  might  have  been 
saying  to  myself,  as  a  pendant  in  expression  to  the  Ecce 
Homo  of  the  Praetorium. 

He  moved  aside  punctiliously  at  the  lower  of  the  two 
steps  that  led  up  to  the  loggia  to  let  his  wife  precede  him. 
As  she  came  in  I  think  she  gave  me  a  salutation  that  was 
little  more  than  a  quiver  of  the  lids.  Having  closed  her 
parasol,  she  slipped  into  one  of  the  arm-chairs  not  far 
from  the  table. 

Now  that  he  was  at  close  quarters,  with  his  work  before 
him,  he  proceeded  to  the  task  at  once.  In  the  act  of 
laying  his  hat  and  stick  on  a  chair  he  began  with  the  ques- 
tion, "Your  name  is — ?" 

The  voice  had  a  crisp  gentleness  that  seemed  to  come 
from  the  effort  to  despatch  business  with  the  utmost 
celerity  and  spend  no  unnecessary  strength  on  words. 
The  fact  that  he  must  have  heard  my  name  from  Hugh  was 

3  23 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

plainly  to  play  no  part  in  our  discussion.  I  was  so  unutter- 
ably frightened  that  when  I  tried  to  whisper  the  word 
"Adare"  hardly  a  sound  came  forth. 

As  he  raised  himself  from  the  placing  of  his  cap  and 
stick  he  was  obliged  to  utter  a  sharp,  "What?" 

"Adare." 

"Oh,  Adare!" 

It  is  not  a  bad  name  as  names  go;  we  like  to  fancy  our- 
selves connected  with  the  famous  Fighting  Adares  of  the 
County  Limerick;  but  on  J.  Howard  Brokenshire's  lips 
it  had  the  undiscriminating  commonness  of  Smith  or  Jones. 
I  had  never  been  ashamed  of  it  before. 

"And  you're  one  of  my  daughter's — " 

"I'm  her  nursery  governess." 

"Sit  down." 

As  he  took  the  chair  at  the  end  of  the  table  I  dropped 
again  into  that  at  the  side  from  which  I  had  risen.  It 
was  then  that  something  happened  which  left  me  for  a 
second  in  doubt  as  to  whether  to  take  it  as  comic  or  catas- 
trophic. His  left  eye  closed;  his  left  nostril  quivered; 
he  winked.  To  avoid  having  to  face  this  singular  phenom- 
enon a  second  time  I  lowered  my  eyes  and  began  me- 
chanically to  sew. 

"Put  that  down!" 

I  placed  the  work  on  the  table  and  once  more  looked 
at  him.  The  striking  eyes  were  again  as  striking  as  ever. 
In  their  sympathetic  hardness  there  was  nothing  either 
ribald  or  jocose. 

I  suppose  my  scrutiny  annoyed  him,  though  I  was  un- 
conscious of  more  than  a  mute  asking  for  orders.  He 
pointed  to  a  distant  chair,  a  chair  in  a  corner,  just  within 
the  loggia  as  you  come  from  the  direction  of  the  dining- 
room. 

24 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

"Sit  there." 

I  know  now  that  his  wink  distressed  him.  It  was  some- 
thing which  at  that  time  had  come  upon  him  recently,  and 
that  he  could  neither  control  nor  understand.  A  less  im- 
posing man,  a  man  to  whom  personal  impressiveness  was 
less  of  an  asset  in  daily  life  and  work,  would  probably 
have  been  less  disturbed  by  it;  but  to  J.  Howard  Broken- 
shire  it  was  a  trial  in  more  ways  than  one.  Curiously,  too, 
when  the  left  eye  winked  the  right  grew  glassy  and  quite 
terrible. 

Not  knowing  that  he  was  sensitive  in  this  respect,  I  took 
my  retreat  to  the  corner  as  a  kind  of  symbolic  banishment. 

"Hadn't  I  better  stand  up?"  I  asked,  proudly,  when  I 
had  reached  my  chair. 

"Be  good  enough  to  sit  down." 

I  seemed  to  fall  backward.  The  tone  had  the  effect  of 
a  shot.  If  I  had  ever  felt  small  and  foolish  in  my  life  it 
was  then.  I  flushed  to  my  darkest  crimson.  Angry  and 
humiliated,  I  was  obliged  to  rush  to  my  maxim  in  order 
not  to  flash  back  in  some  indignant  retort. 

And  then  another  thing  happened  of  which  I  was 
unable  at  the  minute  to  get  the  significance.  Mrs. 
Brokenshire  sprang  up  with  the  words: 

"You're  quite  right,  Howard.  It's  ever  so  much  cooler 
over  here  by  the  edge.  I  never  felt  anything  so  stuffy  as 
the  middle  of  this  place.  It  doesn't  seem  possible  for 
air  to  get  into  it." 

While  speaking  she  moved  with  incomparable  dainti- 
ness to  a  chair  corresponding  to  mine  and  diagonally 
opposite.  With  the  length  and  width  of  the  loggia  be- 
tween us  we  exchanged  glances.  In  hers  she  seemed  to 
say,  "If  you  are  banished  I  shall  be  banished  too";  in 
mine  I  tried  to  express  gratitude.  And  yet  I  was  aware 

25 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

that  I  might  have  misunderstood  both  movement  and 
look  entirely. 

My  next  surprise  was  in  the  words  Mr.  Brokenshire 
addressed  to  me.  He  spoke  in  the  soft,  slightly  nasal 
staccato  which  I  am  told  had  on  his  business  associates 
the  effect  of  a  whip-lash. 

"We've  come  over  to  tell  you,  Miss — Miss  Adare,  how 
much  we  appreciate  your  attitude  toward  our  boy,  Hugh. 
I  understand  from  him  that  he's  offered  to  marry  you,  and 
that  very  properly  in  your  situation  you've  declined. 
The  boy  is  foolish,  as  you  evidently  see.  He  meant  noth- 
ing; he  could  do  nothing.  You're  probably  not  without 
experience  of  a  similar  kind  among  the  sons  of  your 
other  employers.  At  the  same  time,  as  you  doubtless 
expect,  we  sha'n't  let  you  suffer  by  your  prudence — " 

It  was  a  bad  beginning.  Had  he  made  any  sort  of  ap- 
peal to  me,  however  unkindly  worded,  I  should  probably 
have  yielded.  But  the  tradition  of  the  Fighting  Adares 
was  not  in  me  for  nothing,  and  after  a  smothering  sensa- 
tion which  rendered  me  speechless  I  managed  to  stammer 
out: 

"Won't  you  allow  me  to  say  that — " 

The  way  in  which  his  large,  white,  handsome  hand  went 
up  was  meant  to  impose  silence  upon  me  while  he  himself 
went  on: 

"In  order  that  you  may  not  be  annoyed  by  my  son's 
folly  in  the  future  you  will  leave  my  daughter's  employ, 
you'll  leave  Newport — you'll  be  well  advised,  indeed,  in 
going  back  to  your  own  country,  which  I  understand  to 
be  the  British  provinces.  You  will  lose  nothing,  however, 
by  this  conduct,  as  I've  given  you  to  understand.  Three 
— four — five  thousand  dollars — I  think  five  ought  to  be 
sufficient — generous,  in  fact — " 

26 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

"But  I've  not  refused  him,"  I  was  able  at  last  to  inter-1' 
pose.  "I — I  mean  to  accept  him." 

There  was  an  instant  of  stillness  during  which  one 
could  hear  the  pounding  of  the  sea. 

"Does  that  mean  that  you  want  me  to  raise  your 
price?" 

"No,  Mr.  Brokenshire.  I  have  no  price.  If  it  means 
anything  at  all  that  has  to  do  with  you,  it's  to  tell  you 
that  I'm  mistress  of  my  acts  and  that  I  consider  your  son 
— he's  twenty-six — to  be  master  of  his." 

There  was  a  continuation  of  the  stillness.  His  voice 
when  he  spoke  was  the  gentlest  sound  I  had  ever  heard 
in  the  way  of  human  utterance.  If  it  were  not  for  the 
situation  it  could  have  been  considered  kind: 

"Anything  at  all  that  has  to  do  with  me?  You  seem 
to  attach  no  importance  to  the  fact  that  Hugh  is  my  son." 

I  do  not  know  how  words  came  to  me.  They  seemed 
to  flow  from  my  lips  independently  of  thought. 

"I  attach  importance  only  to  the  fact  that  he's  a  man. 
Men  who  are  never  anything  but  their  father's  sons  aren't 
men." 

"And  yet  a  father  has  some  rights." 

"Yes,  sir;  some.  He  has  the  right  to  follow  where  his 
grown-up  children  lead.  He  hasn't  the  right  to  lead  and 
require  his  grown-up  children  to  follow." 

He  shifted  his  ground.  "I'm  obliged  to  you  for  your 
opinion,  but  at  present  it's  not  to  the  point — " 

I  broke  in  breathlessly :  "  Pardon  me,  sir;  it's  exactly  to 
the  point.  I'm  a  woman;  Hugh's  a  man.  We're — we're 
in  love  with  each  other;  it's  all  we  have  to  be  concerned 
with." 

"Not  quite;  you've  got  to  be  concerned — with  me." 

"Which  is  what  I  deny." 

27 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

"Oh,  denial  won't  do  you  any  good.  I  didn't  come  to 
hear  your  denials,  or  your  affirmations,  either.  I've  come 
to  tell  you  what  to  do." 

"But  if  I  know  that  already?" 

"That's  quite  possible — if  you  mean  to  play  your 
game  as  doubtless  you've  played  it  before.  I  only  want 
to  warn  you — " 

I  looked  toward  Mrs.  Brokenshire  for  help,  but  her 
eyes  were  fixed  on  the  floor,  on  which  she  was  drawing 
what  seemed  like  a  design  with  the  tip  of  her  parasol. 
The  greyhounds  were  stretched  at  her  feet.  I  could  do 
nothing  but  speak  for  myself,  which  I  did  with  a  calmness 
that  surprised  me. 

"Mr.  Brokenshire,"  I  interrupted,  "you  are  a  man 
and  I'm  a  woman.  What's  more,  you're  a  strong  man, 
while  I'm  a  woman  with  no  protection  at  all.  I  ask  you 
— do  you  think  you're  playing  a  man's  part  in  insulting 
me?" 

His  tone  grew  kind  almost  to  affection.  "My  dear 
young  lady,  you  misunderstand  me.  Insult  couldn't  be 
further  from  my  thoughts.  I'm  speaking  entirely  for 
your  own  sake.  You're  young;  you're  very  pretty;  I 
won't  say  you've  no  knowledge  of  the  world  because  I 
see  you  have — " 

"I've  a  good  deal  of  knowledge  of  the  world." 

"Only  not  such  knowledge  as  would  warrant  you  in 
pitting  yourself  against  me." 

"But  I  don't.     If  you'd  leave  me  alone — " 

"Let  us  keep  to  what  we're  talking  of.  I'm  sorry  for 
you;  I  really  am.  You're  at  the  beginning  of  what 
might  euphemistically — do  you  know  the  meaning  of  the 
word? — be  called  a  career.  I  should  like  to  save  you  from 
it;  that's  all.  It's  why  I'm  speaking  to  you  very  plainly 

28 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

and  using  language  that  can't  be  misunderstood.  There's 
nothing  original  in  your  proceeding,  believe  me.  Nearly 
every  family  of  the  standing  of  mine  has  had  to  reckon 
with  something  of  the  sort.  Where  there  are  young  men, 
and  young  women  of — what  do  you  want  me  to  say? — 
young  women  who  mean  to  do  the  best  they  can  for  them- 
selves— let  us  put  it  in  that  way — " 

"I'm  a  gentleman's  daughter,"  I  broke  in,  weakly. 

He  smiled.  " Oh  yes;  you're  all  gentlemen's  daughters. 
Neither  is  there  anything  original  in  that." 

"  Mrs.  Rossiter  will  tell  you  that  my  father  was  a  judge 
in  Canada — " 

"The  detail  doesn't  interest  me." 

"No,  but  it  interests  me.  It  gives  me  a  sense  of  being 
equal  to — " 

"If  you  please!    We'll  not  go  into  that." 

"But  I  must  speak.  If  I'm  to  marry  Hugh  you  must 
let  me  tell  you  who  I  am." 

"  It's  not  necessary.  You're  not  to  marry  Hugh.  Let 
that  be  absolutely  understood.  Once  you've  accepted 
the  fact—" 

"I  could  only  accept  it  from  Hugh  himself." 

"That's  foolish.     Hugh  will  do  as  I  tell  him." 

"But  why  should  he  in  this  case?" 

"That  again  is  something  we  needn't  discuss.  All  that 
matters,  my  dear  young  lady,  is  your  own  interest.  I'm 
working  for  that,  don't  you  see,  against  yourself — " 

I  burst  out,  "But  why  shouldn't  I  marry  him?" 

He  leaned  on  the  table,  tapping  gently  with  his  hand. 
"Because  we  don't  want  you  to.  Isn't  that  enough?" 

I  ignored  this.  "If  it's  because  you  don't  know  any- 
thing about  me  I  could  tell  you." 

"Oh,  but  we  do  know  something  about  you.     We  know, 

29 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

for  example,  since  you  compel  me  to  say  it,  that  you're 
a  little  person  of  no  importance  whatever." 

"My  family  is  one  of  the  best  in  Canada." 

"And  admitting  that  that's  so,  who  would  care  what 
constituted  a  good  family  in  Canada?  To  us  here  it 
means  nothing;  in  England  it  would  mean  still  less.  I've 
had  opportunities  of  judging  how  Canadians  are  regarded 
in  England,  and  I  assure  you  it's  nothing  to  make  you 
proud." 

Of  the  several  things  he  had  said  to  sting  me  I  was  most 
sensitive  to  this.  I,  too,  had  had  opportunities  of  judg- 
ing, and  knew  that  if  anything  could  make  one  ashamed  of 
being  a  British  colonial  of  any  kind  it  would  be  British 
opinion  of  colonials. 

"My  father  used  to  say — " 

He  put  up  his  large,  white  hand.  "Another  time.  Let 
us  keep  to  the  subject  before  us." 

I  omitted  the  mention  of  my  father  to  insist  on  a  theory 
as  to  which  I  had  often  heard  him  express  himself:  "If 
it's  part  of  the  subject  before  us  that  I'm  a  Canadian  and 
that  Canadians  are  ground  between  the  upper  and  lower 
millstones  of  both  English  and  American  contempt — " 

"Isn't  that  another  digression?" 

"Not  really,"  I  hurried  on,  determined  to  speak,  "be- 
cause if  I'm  a  sufferer  by  it,  you  are,  too,  in  your  degree. 
It's  part  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  tradition  for  those  who  stay 
behind  to  despise  those  who  go  out  as  pioneers.  The  race 
has  always  done  it.  It  isn't  only  the  British  who've  de- 
spised their  colonists.  The  people  of  the  Eastern  States 
despised  those  who  went  out  and  peopled  the  Middle 
West;  those  in  the  Middle  West  despised  those  who  went 
farther  West."  I  was  still  quoting  my  father.  "It's 
something  that  defies  reason  and  eludes  argument.  It's 

30 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

a  base  strain  in  the  blood.  It's  like  that  hierarchy  among 
servants  by  which  the  lady's  maid  disdains  the  cook,  and 
the  cook  disdains  the  kitchen-maid,  and  the  proudest  are 
those  who've  nothing  to  be  proud  of.  For  you  to  look 
down  on  me  because  I'm  a  Canadian,  when  the  common- 
est of  Englishmen,  with  precisely  the  same  justification, 
looks  down  on  you — " 

"Dear  young  lady,"  he  broke  in,  soothingly,  "you're 
talking  wildly.  You're  speaking  of  things  you  know 
nothing  about.  Let  us  get  back  to  what  we  began  with. 
My  son  has  offered  to  marry  you — " 

"He  didn't  offer  to  marry  me.  He  asked  me — he 
begged  me — to  marry  him." 

"The  way  of  putting  it  is  of  no  importance." 

"Ah,  but  it  is." 

"I  mean  that,  however  he  expressed  it — however  you 
express  it — the  result  must  be  the  same." 

I  nerved  myself  to  look  at  him  steadily.  "I  mean  to 
accept  him.  When  he  asked  me  yesterday  I  said  I 
wouldn't  give  him  either  a  Yes  or  a  No  till  I  knew  what 
you  and  his  family  thought  of  it.  But  now  that  I  do 
know—" 

"You're  determined  to  try  the  impossible." 

"  It  won't  be  the  impossible  till  he  tells  me  so." 

He  seemed  for  a  second  or  two  to  study  me.  "  Suppose 
I  accepted  you  as  what  you  say  you  are — as  a  young 
woman  of  good  antecedents  and  honorable  character. 
Would  you  still  persist  in  the  effort  to  force  yourself  on 
a  family  that  didn't  want  you?" 

I  confess  that  in  the  language  Mr.  Strangways  and  I 
had  used  in  the  morning,  he  had  me  here  "on  the  hip." 
To  force  myself  on  a  family  that  didn't  want  me  would 
normally  have  been  the  last  of  my  desires.  But  I  was 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

fighting  now  for  something  that  went  beyond  my  desires — 
something  larger — something  national,  as  I  conceived  of 
nationality — something  human — though  I  couldn't  have 
said  exactly  what  it  was.  I  answered  only  after  long 
deliberation. 

"I  couldn't  stop  to  consider  a  family.  My  object 
would  be  to  marry  the  man  who  loved  me — and  whom  I 
loved." 

"So  that  you'd  face  the  humiliation — " 

"It  wouldn't  be  humiliation,  because  it  would  have 
nothing  to  do  with  me.  It  would  pass  into  another 
sphere." 

"  It  wouldn't  be  another  sphere  to  him." 

"I  should  have  to  let  him  take  care  of  that.  It's  all  I 
can  manage  to  look  out  for  myself — " 

There  seemed  to  be  some  admiration  in  his  tone. 

"Which  you  seem  rnarvelously  well  fitted  to  do." 

"Thank  you." 

"In  fact,  it's  one  of  the  ways  in  which  you  betray 
yourself.  An  innocent  girl — " 

I  strained  forward  in  my  chair.  "Wouldn't  it  be  fair 
for  you  to  tell  me  what  you  mean  by  the  word  innocent?" 

"I  mean  a  girl  who  has  no  special  ax  to  grind — 

I  could  hear  my  foot  tapping  on  the  floor,  but  I  was  to 
indignant  to  restrain  myself.  "  Even  that  figure  of  speech 
leaves  too  much  to  the  imagination." 

He  studied  me  again.     "You're  very  sharp." 

"Don't  I  need  to  be,"  I  demanded,  "with  an  enemy  of 
your  acumen?" 

"But  I'm  not  your  enemy.  It's  what  you  don't  seem 
to  see.  I'm  your  friend.  I'm  trying  to  keep  you  out  of 
a  situation  that  would  kill  you  if  you  got  into  it." 

I  think  I  laughed.  "Isn't  death  preferable  to  dis- 

32 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

honor?"  I  saw  my  mistake  in  the  quickness  with  which 
Mrs.  Brokenshire  looked  up.  "There  are  more  kinds  of 
dishonor  than  one,"  I  explained,  loftily,  "and  to  me  the 
blackest  would  be  in  allowing  you  to  dictate  to  me." 

"My  dear  young  woman,  I  dictate  to  men — " 

"Oh,  to  men!" 

"I  see!  You  presume  on  your  womanhood.  It's  a 
common  American  expedient,  and  a  cheap  one.  But  I 
don't  stop  for  that." 

"You  may  not  stop  for  womanhood,  Mr.  Brokenshire; 
but  neither  does  womanhood  stop  for  you." 

He  rose  with  an  air  of  weary  patience.  "I'm  afraid 
we  sha'n't  gain  anything  by  talking  further — " 

"I'm  afraid  not."  I,  too,  rose,  advancing  to  the  table. 
We  confronted  each  other  across  it,  while  one  of  the  dogs 
came  nosing  to  his  master's  hand.  I  had  barely  the 
strength  to  gasp  on:  "We've  had  our  talk  and  you  see 
where  I  am.  I  ask  nothing  but  the  exercise  of  human 
liberty — and  the  measure  of  respect  I  conceive  to  be  due 
to  every  one.  Surely  you,  an  American,  a  representative 
of  what  America  is  supposed  to  stand  for,  can't  think  of  it 
as  too  much." 

"If  America  is  supposed  to  stand  for  your  marrying 
my  son — " 

"America  stands,  so  I've  been  told  by  Americans,  for 
the  reasonable  freedom  of  the  individual.  If  Hugh  wants 
to  marry  me — " 

"Hugh  will  marry  the  woman  I  approve  of." 

"Then  that  apparently  is  what  we  must  put  to  the 
test." 

I  was  now  so  near  to  tears  that  I  suppose  he  saw  an 
opening  to  his  own  advantage.  Coming  round  the  table, 
he  stood  looking  down  at  me  with  that  expression  which 

33 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

I  can  only  describe  as  sympathetic.  With  all  the  dominat- 
ing aggressiveness  which  either  forced  you  to  give  in  to 
him  or  urged  you  to  fight  him  till  you  dropped,  there  was 
that  about  him  which  left  you  with  a  lingering  suspicion 
that  he  might  be  right.  It  was  the  man  who  might  be 
right  who  was  presently  sitting  easily  on  the  edge  of  the 
table,  so  that  his  face  was  on  a  level  with  my  own,  and 
saying  in  a  kindly  voice: 

"Now  look  here!  Let's  be  reasonable.  I  don't  want 
to  be  unfair  to  you,  or  to  say  anything  a  man  isn't  justified 
in  saying  to  a  woman.  I'm  willing  to  throw  the  whole 
blame  on  Hugh — " 

"I'm  not,"  I  declared,  hotly. 

"That's  generous;  but  I'm  speaking  of  myself.  I'm 
willing  to  throw  the  whole  blame  on  Hugh,  because  he's 
my  son.  I'll  absolve  you,  if  you  like,  because  you're  a 
stranger  and  a  girl,  and  consider  you  a  victim — " 

"I'm  not  a  victim,"  I  insisted.  "I'm  only  a  human 
being,  asking  for  a  human  being's  rights." 

He  shrugged  his  shoulders.  "Oh,  rights!  Who  knows 
what  rights  are?" 

"I  do.    That  is,"  I  corrected,  "I  know  my  own." 

"Oh,  of  course!  One  always  knows  one's  own.  One's 
own  rights  are  everything  one  can  get.  Now  you  can't 
get  Hugh;  but  you  can  get  five  thousand  dollars.  That's 
a  lot  of  money.  There  are  men  all  over  the  United  States 
who'd  cut  off  a  hand  for  it.  You  won't  have  to  cut  off  a 
hand.  You  only  need  to  be  a  good,  sensible  little  girl  and 
— get  out."  Perhaps  he  thought  I  was  yielding,  for  he 
tapped  his  side  pocket  as  he  went  on  speaking.  "It 
won't  take  a  minute.  I've  got  a  check-book  here — a 
stroke  of  the  pen — " 

My  work  was  lying  on  the  table  a  few  inches  away. 

34 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

Leaning  forward  deliberately  I  put  it  into  the  basket, 
which  I  tucked  under  my  arm.  I  looked  at  Mrs.  Broken- 
shire,  who  was  leaning  forward  and  looking  at  me.  I 
inclined  my  head  with  a  slight  salutation,  to  which  she 
did  not  respond,  and  turned  away.  Of  him  I  took  no 
notice. 

"So  it's  war." 

I  was  half-way  to  the  dining-room  when  I  heard  him 
say  that.  As  I  paused  to  look  back  he  was  still  sitting 
sidewise  on  the  edge  of  the  table,  swinging  a  leg  and 
staring  after  me. 

"No,  sir,"  I  said,  quietly.  "It  takes  two  to  fight,  and 
I  should  never  think  of  being  one." 

"You  know,  of  course,  that  I  shall  have  no  mercy  on 
you." 

"No,  sir;  I  don't." 

"Then  you  can  know  it  now.  I'm  sorry  for  you;  but 
I  can't  afford  to  spare  you.  Bigger  things  than  you  have 
come  in  my  way — and  have  been  blasted." 

Mrs.  Brokenshire  made  a  quick  little  movement  be- 
hind his  back.  It  told  me  nothing  I  understood  then, 
though  I  was  able  to  interpret  it  later.  I  could  only  say, 
in  a  voice  that  shook  with  the  shaking  of  my  whole  body: 

"You  couldn't  blast  me,  sir,  because — because — " 

"Yes?    Because — what?    I  should  like  to  know." 

There  was  a  robin  hopping  on  the  lawn  outside  and  I 
pointed  to  it.  "You  couldn't  blast  a  little  bird  like  that 
with  a  bombshell." 

"Oh,  birds  have  been  shot." 

"Yes,  sir;  with  a  fowling-piece;  but  not  with  a  howitzer. 
The  one  is  too  big;  the  other  is  too  small." 

I  was  about  to  drop  him  a  little  courtesy  when  I  saw 
him  wink.  It  was  a  grotesque,  amusing  wink  that  quiv- 

35 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

ered  and  twisted  till  it  finally  closed  the  left  eye.  If  he 
had  been  a  less  handsome  man  the  effect  would  have 
been  less  absurd. 

I  made  my  courtesy  the  deeper,  bending  my  head  and 
lowering  my  eyes  so  as  to  spare  him  the  knowledge  that 
I  saw. 


CHAPTER  III 

"  T  JE  attacked  my  country.    I  think  I  could  forgive 

il  him  everything  but  that." 

It  was  an  hour  after  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Brokenshire  had 
left  me.  I  was  half  crying  by  this  time — that  is,  half 
crying  in  the  way  one  cries  from  rage,  and  yet  laughing 
nervously,  in  flashes,  at  the  same  time.  From  the  weak- 
ness of  sheer  excitement  I  had  dropped  to  one  of  the 
steps  leading  down  to  the  Cliff  Walk,  while  Larry  Strang- 
ways  leaned  on  the  stone  post.  I  had  met  him  there  as 
I  was  going  out  and  he  was  coming  toward  the  house. 
We  couldn't  but  stop  to  exchange  a  word,  especially  with 
his  knowledge  of  the  situation.  He  took  what  I  had  to 
say  with  the  light,  gleaming,  non-committal  smile  which 
he  brought  to  bear  on  everything.  I  was  glad  of  that 
because  it  kept  him  detached.  I  didn't  want  him  any 
nearer  to  me  than  he  was. 

"Attacked  your  country?     Do  you  mean  England?" 

"No;  Canada.  England  is  my  grandmother;  but 
Canada's  my  mother.  He  said  you  all  despised  her." 

"Oh  no,  we  don't.  He  was  trying  to  put  something 
over  on  you." 

"Your  'No,  we  don't'  lacks  conviction;  but  I  don't 
mind  you.  I  shouldn't  mind  him  if  I  hadn't  seen  so 
much  of  it." 

"So  much  of  what?" 

37 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

"Being  looked  down  upon  geographically.  Of  all  the 
ways  of  being  proud,"  I  declared,  indignantly,  "that 
which  depends  on  your  merely  accidental  position  with 
regard  to  land  and  water  strikes  me  as  the  most  poor- 
spirited.  I  can't  imagine  any  one  dragging  himself  down 
to  it  who  had  another  rag  of  a  reason  for  self-respect.  As 
a  matter  of  fact,  I  don't  believe  any  one  ever  does.  The 
people  I've  heard  express  themselves  on  the  subject — well, 
I'll  give  you  an  illustration:  There  was  a  woman  at  Gib- 
raltar— a  major's  wife,  a  big,  red-faced  woman.  Her 
name  was  Arbuthnot — her  father  was  a  dean  or  something 
— a  big,  red-faced  woman,  with  one  of  those  screechy, 
twangy  English  voices  that  cut  you  like  a  saw — you  know 
there  are  some — a  good  many — and  they  don't  know  it. 
Well,  she  was  saying  something  sneering  about  Canadians. 
I  was  sitting  opposite — it  was  at  a  dinner-party — and  so 
I  leaned  across  the  table  and  asked  her  why  she  didn't 
like  them.  She  said  colonials  were  such  dreadful  form. 
I  held  her  with  my  eye  " — I  showed  him  how — "  and  made 
myself  small  and  demure  as  I  said,  'But,  dear  lady,  how 
clever  of  you!  Who  would  ever  have  supposed  that 
you'd  know  that?'  My  sister  Vic  pitched  into  me  about 
it  after  we  got  home.  She  said  the  Arbuthnot  person 
didn't  understand  what  I  meant — nor  any  one  else  at  the 
table,  they're  so  awfully  thick-skinned — and  that  it's 
better  to  let  them  alone.  But  that's  the  kind  of  person 
who—" 

He  tried  to  comfort  me.  "They'll  come  round  in  time. 
One  of  these  days  England  will  see  what  she  owes  to  her 
colonists  and  do  them  justice." 

"Never!"  I  declared,  vehemently.  "It  will  be  al- 
ways the  same — till  we  knock  the  Empire  to  pieces. 
Then  they'll  respect  us.  Look  at  the  Boer  War.  Didn't 

38 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

our  men  sacrifice  everything  to  go  out  that  long  distance 
— and  win  battles — and  lay  down  their  lives — only  to 
have  the  English  say  afterward — especially  the  army 
people — that  they  were  more  trouble  than  they  were 
worth?  It  will  be  always  the  same.  When  we've  given 
our  last  penny  and  shed  our  last  drop  of  blood  they'll 
still  tell  us  we've  been  nothing  but  a  nuisance.  You 
may  live  to  see  it  and  remember  that  I  said  so.  If  when 
Shakespeare  wrote  that  it's  sharper  than  a  serpent's 
tooth  to  have  a  thankless  child  he'd  gone  on  to  add 
that  it's  the  very  dickens  to  have  a  picturesque,  self- 
satisfied  old  grandmother  who  thinks  her  children's  chil- 
dren should  give  her  everything  and  take  kicks  instead 
of  ha'pence  for  their  pay,  he'd  have  been  up  to  date. 
Mind  you,  we  don't  object  to  giving  our  last  penny  and 
shedding  our  last  drop  of  blood;  we  only  hate  being 
abused  and  sneered  at  for  doing  it." 

I  warmed  to  my  subject  as  I  dabbed  fiercely  at  my  eyes. 

"  I'll  tell  you  what  the  typical  John  Bull  is  like.  He's 
like  those  men — big,  flabby  men  they  generally  are — who'll 
be  brutes  to  you  so  long  as  you're  civil  to  them,  but  will 
climb  down  the  minute  you  begin  to  hit  back.  Look  at 
the  way  they  treat  you  Americans !  They  can't  do  enough 
for  you — because  you  snap  your  fingers  in  their  faces  and 
show  them  you  don't  care  a  hang  about  them.  They 
come  over  here,  and  give  you  lectures,  and  marry  your 
girls,  and  pocket  your  money,  and  adopt  your  bad  form 
as  delightful  originality — and  respect  you.  Now  that 
earls'  daughters  are  beginning  to  cast  an  eye  on  your 
millionaires — Mrs.  Rossiter  told  me  that — they  won't 
leave  you  a  rag  to  your  back.  But  with  us  who've  been 
faithful  and  loyal  they're  all  the  other  way.  I  can  hardly 
tell  you  the  small  pin-pricking  indignities  to  which  my 

4  39 


THE   HIGH   HEART 

sisters  and  I  have  been  subjected  for  being  Canadians. 
And  they'll  never  change.  It  will  never  be  otherwise, 
no  matter  what  we  do,  no  matter  what  we  become,  no 
matter  if  we  give  our  bodies  to  be  burned,  as  the  Bible 
says.  It  will  never  be  otherwise — not  till  we  imitate  you 
and  strike  them  in  the  face.  Then  you'll  see  how  they'll 
come  round."1 

He  still  smiled,  with  an  aloofness  in  which  there  was  a 
beam  of  sweetness.  "I  had  no  idea  that  you  were  such 
a  little  rebel." 

"I'm  not  a  rebel.  I'm  loyal  to  the  King.  That  is, 
I'm  loyal  to  the  great  Anglo-Saxon  ideal  of  which  the 
King  is  the  symbol — and  I  suppose  he's  as  good  a  symbol 
as  any  other,  especially  as  he's  already  there.  The  Eng- 
lish are  only  partly  Anglo-Saxon.  'Saxon  and  Norman 
and  Dane  are  they' — didn't  Tennyson  say  that?  Well, 
there's  a  lot  that's  Norman,  and  a  lot  that's  Dane,  and  a 
lot  that's  Scotch  and  Irish  and  rag-tag  in  them.  But 
they're  saved  by  the  pure  Anglo-Saxon  ideal  in  so  far 
as  they  hold  to  it — just  as  you'll  be,  with  all  your  mixed 
bloods — and  just  as  we  shall  be  ourselves.  It's  like  salt 
in  the  meat,  it's  like  grace  in  the  Christian  religion — it's 
the  thing  that  saves,  and  I'm  loyal  to  that.  My  father 
used  to  say  that  it's  the  fact  that  English  and  Canadians 
and  Australians  are  all  devoted  to  the  same  principle  that 
holds  us  together  as  an  Empire,  and  not  the  subservience 
of  distant  lands  to  a  Parliament  sitting  at  Westminster. 
And  so  it  is.  We  don't  always  like  each  other;  but  that 

1  This  was  said  before  the  Great  War.  It  is  now  supposed  that 
when  peace  is  made  there  will  be  a  change  in  English  opinion.  With 
my  knowledge  of  my  country — the  British  Empire — I  permit  my- 
self to  doubt  it.  There  is  a  proverb  which  begins,  "When  the  devil 
was  sick."  I  shall,  however,  be  glad  if  I  am  proved  wrong. — Alex- 
andra Adare. 

40 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

doesn't  matter.  What  does  matter  is  that  we  should 
betray  the  fact  that  we  don't  like  each  other  to  outsiders 
— and  so  give  them  a  handle  against  us." 

"You  mean  that  J.  Howard  should  be  in  a  position  to 
side  with  the  English  in  looking  down  on  you  as  a  Cana- 
dian?" 

"Yes,  and  that  the  English  should  give  him  that  posi- 
tion. He's  an  American  and  an  enemy — every  Ameri- 
can is  an  enemy  to  England  au  fond.  Oh  yes,  he  is! 
You  needn't  deny  it!  It's  something  fundamental,  deep- 
•  er  down  than  anything  you  understand.  Even  those  of 
you  who  like  England  are  hostile  to  her  at  heart  and  would 
be  glad  to  see  her  in  trouble.  So,  I  say,  he's  an  American 
and  an  enemy,  and  yet  they  hand  me,  their  child  and  their 
friend,  over  to  him  to  be  trampled  on.  He's  had  oppor- 
tunities of  judging  how  Canadians  are  regarded  in  Eng- 
land, he  says — and  he  assures  me  it's  nothing  to  be  proud 
of.  That's  it.  I've  had  opportunities  too — and  I  have 
to  admit  that  he's  right.  Don't  you  see?  That's  what 
enrages  me.  As  far  as  their  liking  us  and  our  not  liking 
them  is  concerned,  why,  it's  all  in  the  family.  So  long  as 
it's  kept  in  the  family  it's  like  the  pick  that  Louise  and 
Vic  have  always  had  on  me.  I'm  the  youngest  and  the 
plainest — " 

"Oh,  you're  the  plainest,  are  you?  What  on  earth  are 
they  like?" 

"They're  quite  good-looking,  and  they're  awfully  chic, 
But  that's  in  parentheses.  What  I  mean  is  that  they're 
always  hectoring  me  because  I'm  not  attractive — " 

"Really?" 

"I'm  not  fishing  for  compliments.  I'm  too  busy  and 
too  angry  for  that.  I  want  to  go  on  talking  about  what 
we're  talking  about." 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

"But  I  want  to  know  why  they  said  you  were  unat- 
tractive." 

"Well,  perhaps  they  didn't  say  it.  What  they  have 
said  is  this,  and  it's  what  Mrs.  Rossiter  says — she  said  it 
to-day — that  I'm  only  attractive  to  one  man  in  five 
hundred — " 

"But  very  attractive  to  him?" 

"No;  she  didn't  say  that.  She  merely  admitted  that 
her  brother  Hugh  was  that  man — " 

He  interrupted  with  something  I  wished  at  the  time 
he  hadn't  said,  and  which  I  tried  to  ignore: 

"  He's  the  man  in  that  five  hundred — and  I  know  an- 
other in  another  five  hundred,  which  makes  two  in  a 
thousand.  You'd  soon  get  up  to  a  high  percentage,  when 
you  think  of  all  the  men  there  are  in  the  world." 

As  he  had  never  hinted  at  anything  of  the  kind  before, 
it  gave  me — how  shall  I  put  it? — I  can  only  think  of  the 
word  fright — it  gave  me  a  little  fright.  It  made  me  un- 
easy. It  was  nothing,  really.  It  was  spoken  with  that 
gleaming  smile  of  his  which  seemed  to  put  distance  be- 
tween him  and  me — between  him  and  everything  else 
that  was  serious — and  yet  subconsciously  I  felt  as  one 
feels  on  hearing  the  first  few  notes,  in  an  opera  or  a 
symphony,  of  that  arresting  phrase  which  is  to  work  up 
into  a  great  motive.  I  tried  to  get  back  to  my  original 
theme,  rising  to  move  on  as  I  did  so. 

"Good  gracious!"  I  cried.  "Isn't  the  world  big  enough 
for  us  all?  Why  should  we  go  about  saying  unkind  and 
untrue  things  of  one  other,  when  each  of  us  is  an  essential 
part  of  a  composite  whole?  Isn't  it  the  foot  saying  to 
the  hand  I  have  no  need  of  thee,  and  the  eye  saying  the 
same  thing  to  the  nose  ?  We've  got  something  you  haven' t 
got,  and  you've  got  something  we  haven't  got.  Why 

42 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

shouldn't  we  be  appreciative  toward  each  other,  and 
make  our  exchange  with  mutual  respect  as  we  do  with 
trade  commodities?" 

It  was  probably  to  urge  me  on  to  talk  that  he  said, 
with  a  challenging  smile:  "What  have  you  Canadians 
got  that  we  haven't?  Why,  we  could  buy  and  sell  you." 

"Oh  no,  you  couldn't;  because  our  special  contribu- 
tion toward  the  civilization  of  the  American  continent 
isn't  a  thing  for  sale.  It  can  be  given;  it  can  be  inherited; 
it  can  be  caught;  but  it  can't  be  purchased." 

"Indeed?    What  is  this  elusive  endowment?" 

I  answered  frankly  enough:  "I  don't  know.  It's  there 
— and  I  can't  tell  you  what  is  is.  Ever  since  I've  been 
living  among  you  I've  felt  how  much  we  resemble  each 
other — what  a  difference.  I  think — mind  you,  I  only  think 
— that  what  it  consists  in  is  a  sense  of  the  comme  il  faut. 
We're  simpler  than  you;  and  less  intellectual;  and  poorer, 
of  course;  and  less,  much  less,  self -analytical;  and  yet 
we've  got  a  knowledge  of  what's  what  that  you  couldn't 
command  with  money.  None  of  the  Brokenshires  have 
it  at  all,  and,  as  far  as  I  can  see,  none  of  their  friends. 
They  command  it  with  money,  and  the  difference  is  like 
having  a  copy  of  a  work  of  art  instead  of  the  original.  It 
gives  them  the  air  of  being — I'm  using  Mrs.  Rossiter's 
word — of  being  produced.  Now  we  Canadians  are  not 
produced.  We  just  come — but  we  come  the  right  way — 
without  any  hooting  or  tooting  or  beating  of  tin  pans  or 
self-advertisement.  We  just  are — and  we  say  nothing 
about  it.  Let  me  make  an  example  of  what  Mrs.  Rossiter 
was  discussing  this  morning.  There  are  lots  of  pretty 
girls  in  my  country — as  many  to  the  hundred  as  you  have 
here — but  we  don't  make  a  fuss  about  them  or  talk  as  if 
we'd  ordered  a  special  brand  from  the  Creator.  We 

43 


THE   HIGH   HEART 

grow  them  as  you  grow  flowers  in  a  garden,  at  the  mercy 
of  the  air  and  sunshine.  You  grow  yours  like  plants  in 
a  hothouse,  to  be  exhibited  in  horticultural  shows.  Please 
don't  think  I'm  bragging — " 

He  laughed  aloud.     "  Oh  no !" 

"Well,  I'm  not,"  I  insisted.  "You  asked  me  a  ques- 
tion and  I'm  trying  to  answer  it — and  incidentally  to 
justify  my  own  existence,  which  J.  Howard  has  called  into 
question.  You've  got  lots  to  offer  us,  and  many  of  us 
come  and  take  it  thankfully.  What  we  can  offer  to  you 
is  a  simpler  and  healthier  and  less  self-conscious  standard 
of  life,  with  a  great  deal  less  talk  about  it — with  no  talk 
about  it  at  all,  if  you  could  get  yourselves  down  to  that 
— and  a  willingness  to  be  instead  of  an  everlasting  striv- 
ing to  become.  You  won't  recognize  it  or  take  it,  of 
course.  No  one  ever  does.  Nations  seem  to  me  insane* 
and  ruled  by  insane  governments.  Don't  the  English 
need  the  Germans,  and  the  Germans  the  French,  and  the 
French  the  Austrians,  and  the  Austrians  the  Russians, 
and  so  on?  Why  on  earth  should  the  foot  be  jealous  of 
the  nose?  But  there!  You're  simply  making  me  say 
things — and  laughing  at  me  all  the  while — so  I'm  off  to 
take  my  walk.  We'll  get  even  with  J.  Howard  and  all 
the  first-class  powers  some  day,  and  till  then — au  revoir." 

I  had  waved  my  hand  to  him  and  gone  some  paces  into 
the  fog  that  had  begun  to  blow  in  when  he  called  to  me. 

"Wait  a  minute.     I've  something  to  tell  you." 

I  turned,  without  going  back. 

"I'm— I'm  leaving." 

I  was  so  amazed  that  I  retraced  a  step  or  two  toward 
him.  "What?" 

His  smile  underwent  a  change.  It  grew  frozen  and 
steely  instead  of  being  bright  with  a  continuous  play 

44 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

suggesting  summer  lightning,  which  had  been  its  usual 
quality. 

"My  time  is  up  at  the  end  of  the  month — and  I've 
asked  Mr.  Rossiter  not  to  expect  me  to  go  on." 

I  was  looking  for  something  of  the  sort  sooner  or  later, 
but  now  that  it  had  come  I  saw  how  lonely  I  should  be. 

"Oh!  Where  are  you  going?  Have  you  got  anything 
in  particular?" 

"I'm  going  as  secretary  to  Stacy  Grainger." 

"I've  some  connection  with  that  name,"  I  said,  absent- 
ly, "though  I  can't  remember  what  it  is." 

"You've  probably  heard  of  him.  He's  a  good  deal  in 
the  public  eye." 

"Have  you  known  him  long?"  I  asked,  for  the  sake  of 
speaking,  though  I  was  only  thinking  of  myself. 

"Never  knew  him  at  all."  He  came  nearer  to  me. 
"  I've  a  confession  to  make,  though  it  won't  be  of  interest 
to  you.  All  the  while  I've  been  here,  playing  with  little 
Broke  Rossiter,  I've  been — don't  laugh — I've  been  con- 
tributing to  the  press — moi  qui  vous  park!" 

"What  about?" 

"  Oh,  politics  and  finance  and  foreign  policy  and  public 
things  in  general.  Always  had  a  taste  that  way.  Now 
it  seems  that  something  I  wrote  for  the  Providence  Express 
— people  read  it  a  good  deal — has  attracted  the  attention 
of  the  great  Stacy.  Yes,  he's  great,  too— J.  Howard's 
big  rival  for — " 

I  began  to  recall  something  I  had  heard.  "Wasn't 
there  a  story  about  him  and  Mr.  Brokenshire  and  Mrs. 
Brokenshire?" 

"That's  the  man.  Well,  he's  noticed  my  stuff,  and 
written  to  the  editor — and  to  me,  and  I'm  to  go  to 
him." 

45 


THE    HIGH.  HEART 

I  was  still  thinking  of  myself  and  the  loss  of  his  cam- 
araderie. "I  hope  he's  going  to  pay  you  well." 

"Oh,  for  me  it  will  be  wealth." 

"It  will  probably  be  more  than  that.  It  will  be  the 
first  long  step  up." 

He  nodded  confidently.     "  I  hope  so." 

I  had  again  begun  to  move  away  when  he  stopped  me 
the  second  time. 

"Miss  Adare,  what's  your  first  name?  Mine's  Law- 
rence, as  you  know." 

If  I  laughed  a  little  it  was  to  conceal  my  discomfort  at 
this  abrupt  approach  to  the  intimate. 

"I'm  rather  sorry  for  my  name,"  I  said,  apologetically. 
"You  see  my  father  was  one  of  those  poetically  loyal 
Canadians  who  rather  overdo  the  thing.  My  eldest 
sister  should  have  been  Victoria,  because  Victoria  was 
the  queen.  But  the  Duchess  of  Argyll  was  in  Canada 
at  that  time — and  very  nice  to  father  and  mother — and 
so  the  first  of  us  had  to  be  Louise.  He  couldn't  begin  on 
the  queens  till  there  was  a  second  one.  That's  poor  Vic ; 
while  I'm — I  know  you'll  shout — I'm  Alexandra.  If 
there'd  been  a  fourth  she'd  have  been  a  Mary;  but  poor 
mother  died  and  the  series  stopped." 

He  shook  hands  rather  gravely.  "Then  I  shall  think 
of  you  as  Alexandra." 

"  If  you  are  going  to  think  of  me  at  all,"  I  managed  to 
say,  with  a  little  moue,  "put  me  down  as  Alix.  That's 
what  I've  always  been  called." 


CHAPTER   IV 

I  WAS  glad  of  the  fog.  It  was  cool  and  refreshing;  it 
was  also  concealing.  I  could  tramp  along  under  its 
protection  with  little  or  no  fear  of  being  seen.  Wearing 
tweeds,  thick  boots,  and  a  felt  hat,  I  was  prepared  for 
wet,  and  as  a  Canadian  girl  I  was  used  to  open  air  in  all 
weathers.  The  few  stragglers  generally  to  be  seen  on 
the  Cliff  Walk  having  rushed  to  their  houses  for  shelter, 
I  had  the  rocks  and  the  breakers,  the  honeysuckle  and 
the  patches  of  dog-roses,  to  myself.  In  the  back  of  my 
mind  I  was  fortified,  too,  by  the  knowledge  that  damp- 
ness curls  my  hair  into  pretty  little  tendrils,  so  that  if 
I  did  meet  any  one  I  should  be  looking  at  my  best. 

The  path  is  like  no  other  in  the  world.  I  have  often 
wondered  why  the  American  writer-up  of  picturesque  bits 
didn't  make  more  of  it.  Trouville  has  its  Plage,  and 
Brighton  its  King's  Road,  and  Nice  its  Promenade  des 
Anglais,  but  in  no  other  kingdom  of  leisure  that  I  know 
anything  about  will  you  find  the  combination  of  qualities, 
wild  and  subdued,  that  mark  this  ocean-front  of  the 
island  of  Aquidneck.  Neither  will  you  easily  come  else- 
where so  near  to  a  sense  of  the  primitive  human  struggle, 
of  the  crude  social  clash,  of  the  war  of  the  rights  of  man — 
Fisherman's  Rights,  as  this  coast  historically  knows  them 
— against  encroachment,  privilege,  and  seclusion.  As 
you  crunch  the  gravel,  and  press  the  well-rolled  turf,  and 

47 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

sniff  the  scent  of  the  white  and  red  clover  and  Queen 
Anne's  lace  that  fringe  the  precipice  leaning  over  the 
sea,  you  feel  in  the  air  those  elements  of  conflict  that 
make  drama. 

In  clinging  to  the  edge  of  the  cliff,  in  twisting  round 
every  curve  of  the  shore  line,  in  running  up  hill  and  down 
dale,  under  crags  and  over  them,  the  path  is,  of  course, 
not  the  only  one  of  its  kind.  You  will  find  the  same 
thing  anywhere  on  the  south  coast  of  England  or  the 
north  coast  of  France.  But  in  the  sum  of  human  interest 
it  sucks  into  the  three  miles  of  its  course  I  can  think  of 
nothing  else  that  resembles  it.  As  guaranteeing  the 
rights  of  the  fisherman  it  is,  so  I  believe,  inalienable  public 
property.  The  fisherman  can  walk  on  it,  sit  on  it,  fish 
from  it,  right  into  eternity.  So  much  he  has  secured 
from  the  past  history  of  colony  and  state;  but  he  has 
done  it  at  the  cost  of  making  himself  offensive  to  the  gen- 
tlemen whose  lawns  he  hems  as  a  seamstress  hems  a  skirt. 

It  is  a  hem  like  a  serpent,  with  a  serpent's  sinuosity 
and  grace,  but  also  with  a  serpent's  hatefulness  to  those 
who  can  do  nothing  but  accept  it  as  a  fact.  Since,  as  a 
fact,  it  cannot  be  abolished  it  has  to  be  put  up  with ;  and 
since  it  has  to  be  put  up  with  the  means  must  needs  be 
found  to  deal  with  it  effectively.  Effectively  it  has  been 
dealt  with.  Money,  skill,  and  imagination  have  been  spent 
on  it,  to  adorn  it,  or  disguise  it,  or  sink  it  out  of  sight. 
The  architect,  the  landscape  gardener,  and  the  engineer 
have  all  been  called  into  counsel.  On  Fisherman's  Rights 
the  smile  and  the  frown  are  exercised  by  turns,  each  with 
its  phase  of  ingenuity.  Along  one  stretch  of  a  hundred 
yards  bland  recognition  borders  the  way  with  roses  or 
spans  the  miniature  chasms  with  decorative  bridges; 
along  the  next  shuddering  refinement  grows  a  hedge  or 

48 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

digs  a  trench  behind  which  the  obtrusive  wayfarer  may 
pass  unseen.  But  shuddering  refinement  and  bland 
recognition  alike  withdraw  into  themselves  as  far  as 
broad  lawns  and  lofty  terraces  permit  them  to  retire, 
leaving  to  the  owner  of  Fisherman's  Rights  the  enjoy- 
ment of  ocher  and  umber  rocks  and  sea  and  sky  and  grain- 
fields  yellowing  on  far  headlands. 

It  gave  me  the  nearest  thing  to  glee  I  ever  felt  in  New- 
port. It  was  bracing  and  open  and  free.  It  suggested 
comparisons  with  scrambles  along  Nova-Scotian  shores  or 
tramps  on  the  moors  in  Scotland.  I  often  hated  the  fine 
weather;  it  was  oppressive;  it  was  strangling.  But  a  day 
like  this,  with  its  whiffs  of  wild  wind  and  its  handfuls 
of  salt  slashing  against  eyes  and  mouth  and  nostrils,  was 
not  only  exhilarating,  it  was  glorious.  I  was  glad,  too, 
that  the  prim  villas  and  pretentious  chateaux,  most  of 
them  out  of  proportion  to  any  scale  of  housekeeping  of 
which  America  is  capable,  could  only  be  descried  like 
castles  in  a  dream  through  the  swirling,  diaphanous  drift. 
I  could  be  alone  to  rage  and  fume — or  fly  onward  with  a 
speed  that  was  in  itself  a  relief. 

I  could  be  alone  till,  on  climbing  the  slope  of  a  shorn 
and  wind-swept  bluff,  I  saw  a  square-shouldered  figure 
looming  on  the  crest.  It  was  no  more  than  a  deepening 
of  the  texture  of  the  fog,  but  I  knew  its  lines.  Skimming 
up  the  ascent  with  a  little  cry,  I  was  in  Hugh's  arms,  my 
head  on  his  burly  breast. 

I  think  it  was  his  burliness  that  made  the  most  definite 
appeal  to  me.  He  was  so  sturdy  and  strong,  and  I  was 
so  small  and  desolate.  From  the  beginning,  when  he  first 
used  to  come  near  me,  I  felt  his  presence,  as  the  Bible 
says,  like  the  shadow  of  a  rock  in  a  thirsty  land.  That 
was  in  my  early  homesick  time,  before  I  had  seized  the 

49 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

new  way  of  living  and  the  new  national  point  of  view. 
The  fact,  too,  that,  as  I  expressed  it  to  myself,  I  was  in 
the  second  cabin  when  I  had  always  been  accustomed  to 
the  first,  inspired  a  discomfort  for  which  unwittingly  I 
sought  consolation.  Nobody  thought  of  me  as  other 
than  Mrs.  Rossiter's  retainer,  but  this  one  kindly  man. 

I  noticed  his  kindliness  almost  before  I  noticed  him, 
just  as,  I  think,  he  noticed  my  loneliness  almost  before  he 
noticed  me.  He  opened  doors  for  me  when  I  went  in 
or  out;  he  served  me  with  things  if  he  happened  to  be 
there  at  tea;  he  dropped  into  a  chair  beside  me  when  I 
was  the  only  member  of  a  group  whom  no  one  spoke  to. 
If  Gladys  was  of  the  company  I  was  of  it  too,  with  a 
nominal  footing  but  a  virtual  exclusion.  The  men  in  the 
Rossiter  circle  were  of  the  four  hundred  and  ninety-nine 
to  whom  I  wasn't  attractive;  the  women  were  all  civil — 
from  a  distance.  Occasionally  some  nice  old  lady  would 
ask  me  where  I  came  from  and  if  I  liked  my  work,  or 
talk  to  me  of  new  educational  methods  in  a  way  which, 
with  my  bringing  up,  was  to  me  as  so  much  Greek;  but 
I  never  got  any  other  sign  of  friendliness.  Only  this 
short,  stockily  built  young  fellow,  with  the  small,  blue 
eyes,  ever  recognized  me  as  a  human  being  with  the  aver- 
age yearning  for  human  intercourse. 

During  the  winter  in  New  York  he  never  went  further 
than  that.  I  remembered  Mrs.  Rossiter's  recommenda- 
tion and  "let  him  alone."  I  knew  how  to  do  it.  He  was 
not  the  first  man  I  had  ever  had  to  deal  with,  even  if 
no  one  had  asked  me  to  marry  him.  I  accepted  his  small, 
kindly  acts  with  that  shade  of  discretion  which  defined 
the  distance  between  us.  As  far  as  I  could  observe,  he 
himself  had  no  disposition  to  cross  the  lines  I  set — not 
till  we  moved  to  Newport. 

5° 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

There  was  a  fortnight  between  our  going  there  and  his 
— a  fortnight  which  seemed  to  work  a  change  in  him. 
The  Hugh  Brokenshire  I  met  on  one  of  my  first  rambles 
along  the  cliffs  was  not  the  Hugh  Brokenshire  I  had  last 
seen  in  Fifth  Avenue.  Perhaps  I  was  not  the  same  my- 
self. In  the  new  surroundings  I  had  missed  him — a  little. 
I  will  not  say  that  his  absence  had  meant  an  aching  void 
to  me;  but  where  I  had  had  a  friend,  now  I  had  none — 
since  I  was  unable  to  count  Larry  Strangways.  Had  it 
not  been  for  this  solitude  I  should  have  been  less  receptive 
to  his  comings  when  he  suddenly  began  to  pursue  me. 

Pursuit  is  the  only  word  I  can  use.  I  found  him  every- 
where, quiet,  deliberate,  persistent.  If  he  had  been  ten 
or  even  five  years  older  I  could  have  taken  his  advances 
without  uneasiness.  But  he  was  only  twenty-six  and  a 
dependent.  He  had  no  work;  apart  from  his  allowance 
from  his  father  he  had  no  means.  And  yet  when,  on  the 
day  before  my  chronicle  begins,  he  stole  upon  me  as  I 
sat  in  a  sheltered  nook  below  the  cliffs  to  which  I  was 
fond  of  retreating  when  I  had  time — when  he  stole  upon 
me  there,  and  kissed  me  and  kissed  me  and  kissed  me,  I 
couldn't  help  confessing  that  I  loved  him. 

I  must  leave  to  some  woman  who  has  had  to  fend  for 
herself  the  task  of  telling  what  it  means  when  a  man 
comes  to  offer  her  his  heart  and  his  protection.  It  goes 
without  saying  that  it  means  more  to  her  than  to  the 
sheltered  woman,  for  it  means  things  different  and  more 
wonderful.  It  is  the  expected  unexpected  come  to  pass; 
it  is  the  impossible  achieved.  It  is  not  only  success;  it 
is  success  with  an  aureole  of  glory. 

I  suppose  I  must  be  parasitical  by  nature,  for  I  never 
have  conceived  of  life  as  other  than  dependent  on  some 
man  who  would  love  me  and  take  care  of  me.  Even  when 

Si 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

no  such  man  appeared  and  I  was  forced  out  to  earn  my 
bread,  I  looked  upon  the  need  as  temporary  only.  In  the 
loneliest  of  times  at  Mrs.  Rossiter's,  at  periods  when  I 
didn't  see  a  man  for  weeks,  the  hero  never  seemed  farther 
away  than  just  behind  the  scenes.  I  confess  to  minutes 
when  I  thought  he  tarried  unnecessarily  long;  I  confess 
to  terrified  questionings  as  to  what  would  happen  were 
he  never  to  come  at  all;  I  confess  to  solitary  watches  of 
the  night  in  company  with  fears  and  tears;  but  I  cannot 
confess  to  anything  more  than  a  low  burning  of  that  lamp 
of  hope  which  never  went  out  entirely. 

When,  therefore,  Hugh  Brokenshire  offered  me  what  he 
had  to  offer  me  I  felt  for  a  few  minutes — ten,  fifteen, 
twenty  perhaps — that  sense  of  the  fruition  of  the  being 
which  I  am  sure  comes  to  us  but  rarely  in  this  life,  and 
perhaps  is  a  foretaste  of  eternity.  I  was  like  a  creature 
that  has  long  been  struggling  up  to  some  higher  state — 
and  has  reached  it. 

I  am  ashamed  to  say,  too,  that  my  first  consciousness 
came  in  pictures  to  which  the  dear  young  man  himself 
was  only  incidental.  Two  scenes  in  particular  that  for 
ten  years  past  had  been  only  a  little  below  the  threshold 
of  my  consciousness  came  out  boldly,  like  developed 
photographs.  I  was  the  center  of  both.  In  one  I  saw  a 
dainty  little  dining-room,  where  the  table  was  laid.  The 
damask  was  beautiful;  the  silver  rich;  the  glasses  crys- 
talline. Wearing  an  inexpensive  but  extremely  chic  little 
gown,  I  was  seating  the  guests.  The  other  picture  was 
more  dim,  but  only  in  the  sense  that  the  room  was  de- 
liciously  darkened.  It  had  white  furnishings,  a  little 
white  cot,  and  toys.  In  its  very  center  was  a  bassinet, 
and  I  was  leaning  over  it,  wearing  a. delicate  lace  peignoir. 

Ought  I  to  blush  to  say  that  while  Hugh  stammered 

52 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

out  his  impassioned  declarations  I  was  seeing  these  two 
tableaux  emerging  from  the  state  of  only  half-acknowl- 
edged dreams  into  real  possibility?  I  dare  say.  I  merely 
affirm  that  it  was  so.  Since  the  dominant  craving  of  my 
nature  was  to  have  a  home  and  a  baby,  I  saw  the  baby 
and  the  home  before  I  could  realize  a  husband  or  a  father, 
or  bring  my  mind  to  the  definite  proposals  faltered  by 
poor  Hugh. 

But  I  did  bring  my  mind  to  them,  with  the  result  of 
which  I  have  already  given  a  sufficient  indication.  Even 
in  admitting  that  I  loved  him  I  thrust  and  parried  and 
postponed.  The  whole  idea  was  too  big  for  me  to  grapple 
with  on  the  spur  of  a  sudden  moment.  I  suggested  his 
talking  the  matter  over  with  his  father  chiefly  to  gain 
time. 

But  to  rest  in  his  arms  had  only  a  subordinate  connec- 
tion with  the  great  issue  I  had  to  face.  It  was  a  joy  in 
itself.  It  was  a  pledge  of  the  future,  even  if  I  were  never 
to  take  anything  but  the  pledge.  After  my  shifts  and 
struggles  and  anxieties  I  could  feel  the  satisfaction  of 
knowing  it  was  in  my  power  to  let  them  all  roll  off.  If  I 
were  never  to  do  it,  if  I  were  to  go  back  to  my  uncer- 
tainties, this  minute  would  mitigate  the  trial  in  advance. 
I  might  fight  for  existence  during  all  the  rest  of  my  life, 
and  yet  I  should  still  have  the  bliss  of  remembering  that 
some  one  was  willing  to  fight  for  me. 

He  released  me  at  last,  since  there  might  be  people  in 
Newport  as  indifferent  to  weather  as  ourselves. 

"What  happened?"  he  asked  then,  with  an  eagerness 
which  almost  choked  the  question  in  its  utterance.  "Was 
it  awful?" 

I  was  too  nearly  hysterical  to  enter  on  anything  like 

53 


THE   HIGH    HEART 

a  recital.  "It  might  have  been  worse,"  I  half  laughed 
and  half  sobbed,  trying  to  recover  my  breath  and  dry 
my  eyes. 

His  spirit  seemed  to  leap  at  the  answer.  "Do  you 
mean  to  say  you  got  concessions  from  him — or  anything 
like  that?" 

I  couldn't  help  clinging  to  the  edge  of  his  raincoat. 
"Did  you  expect  me  to?" 

"I  didn't  know  but  what,  when  he  saw  you — " 

"Oh,  but  he  didn't  see  me.  That  was  part  of  the 
difficulty.  He  looked  where  I  was — but  he  didn't  find 
anything  there." 

He  laughed,  with  a  hint  of  disappointment.  "I  know 
what  you  mean;  but  you  mustn't  be  surprised.  He'll  see 
you  yet."  He  clasped  me  again.  "I  didn't  see  you  at 
first,  little  girl;  I  swear  I  didn't.  You're  like  that.  A 
fellow  must  look  at  you  twice  before  he  knows  that  you're 
there;  but  when  he  begins  to  take  notice — "  I  struggled 
out  of  his  embrace,  while  he  continued:  "It's  the  same 
with  all  the  great  things — with  pictures  and  mountains 
and  cathedrals,  and  so  on.  Often  thought  about  it  when 
we've  been  abroad.  See  something  once  and  pass  it  by. 
Next  time  you  look  at  it  a  little.  Third  time  it  begins 
to  grow  on  you.  Fourth  time  you've  found  a  wonder. 
You're  a  wonder,  little  Alix,  do  you  know  it?" 

"Oh  no,  I'm  not.  I  must  warn  you,  Hugh  darling, 
that  I'm  very  prosaic  and  practical  and  ordinary.  You 
mustn't  put  me  on  a  pedestal — " 

"Put  you  on  a  pedestal ?    You  were  born  on  a  pedestal. 
You're  the  woman  I've  seen  in  hopes  and  dreams — " 
r     We  began  to  walk  on,  coming  to  a  little  hollow  that 
'  dipped  near  enough  to  the  shore  to  allow  of  our  scram- 
bling over  the  rocks  to  where  we  could  sit  down  among 

54 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

them.  As  we  were  here  below  the  thickest  belt  of 
the  fog  line,  I  could  see  him  in  a  way  that  had  been 
impossible  on  the  bluff. 

If  he  was  good-looking  it  was  only  in  the  handsome-ugly 
sense.  Mrs.  Rossiter  often  said  he  was  the  one  member 
of  the  family  who  inherited  from  the  Brews  of  Boston, 
a  statement  I  could  verify  from  the  first  Mrs.  Broken- 
shire's  portrait  by  Carolus-Duran.  Hugh's  features  were 
not  ill-formed  so  much  as  they  were  out  of  proportion 
to  each  other,  becoming  thus  a  mere  jumble  of  organs. 
The  blue  eyes  were  too  small  and  too  wide  apart;  the 
forehead  was  too  broad  for  its  height;  the  nose,  which 
started  at  the  same  fine  angle  as  his  father's,  changed  in 
mid-course  to  a  knob;  the  upper  lip  was  intended  to  be 
long,  but  half-way  in  its  descent  took  a  notion  to  curve 
upward,  making  a  hollow  for  a  tender,  youthful,  fair 
mustache  that  didn't  quite  meet  in  the  center  and  might 
have  been  applied  with  a  camel's-hair  brush;  the  lower 
lip  turned  outward  with  a  little  fullness  that  spilled  over 
in  a  little  fall,  giving  to  the  whole  expression  something 
lovably  good-natured. 

Because  the  sea  boiled  over  the  ledges  and  scraped  on 
the  pebbles  with  a  screechy  sound  we  wer«  obliged  to  sit 
close  together  in  order  to  make  ourselves  heard.  His 
arm  about  me  was  amazingly  protective.  I  felt  safe. 

The  account  of  his  interview  with  his  father  was  too 
incoherent  to  give  me  more  than  the  idea  that  they  had 
talked  somewhat  at  cross-purposes.  To  Hugh's  state- 
ment that  he  wished  to  marry  Miss  Adare,  the  little 
nursery  governess  at  Ethel's,  his  father  had  responded 
by  reading  a  letter  from  Lord  Goldborough  inviting  Hugh 
to  his  place  in  Scotland  for  the  shooting. 

"It  would  be  well  for  you  to  accept,"  the  father  com- 

5  55 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

mented,  as  he  folded  the  letter.  "I've  cabled  to  Gold- 
borough  to  say  you'd  sail  on — " 

"But,  father,  how  can  I  sail  when  I've  asked  Miss 
Adare  to  marry  me?" 

To  this  the  reply  was  the  mention  of  the  steamer  and 
the  date.  He  went  on  to  say,  however:  "  If  you've  asked 
any  one  to  marry  you  it's  absurd,  of  course.  But  I'll  take 
care  of  that.  If  you  go  by  that  boat  you'll  reach  London 
in  plenty  of  time  to  fit  out  at  your  tailor's  and  still  be  at 
Strath-na-Cloid  by  the  twelfth.  In  case  you're  short  of 
money — " 

Apparently  they  got  no  further  than  that.  To  Hugh's 
assertions  and  objections  his  father  had  but  one  response. 
It  was  a  response,  as  I  understood,  which  confronted 
the  younger  man  like  a  wall  he  had  neither  the  force  to 
break  down  nor  the  agility  to  climb  over,  and  left  him 
staring  at  a  blank. 

Then  followed  another  outburst  which  to  my  unaccus- 
tomed ear  was  as  wild,  sweet  music.  It  wasn't  merely 
that  he  loved  me,  he  adored  me;  it  wasn't  merely  that 
I  was  young  and  pretty  and  captivating  with  a  sly,  un- 
obtrusive fascination  that  held  you  enchanted  when  it 
held  you  at  all.  I  was  mistress  of  the  wisdom  of  the 
ages.  Among  the  nice  expensively  dressed  young  girls 
with  whom  he  danced  and  rode  and  swam  and  flirted, 
Hugh  had  never  seen  any  one  who  could  "hold  a  candle" 
to  me  in  knowledge  of  human  nature  and  the  world.  It 
wasn't  that  I  had  seen  more  than  they  or  done  more 
than  they;  it  was  that  I  had  a  mind  through  which  every 
impression  filtered  and  came  out  as  something  of  my 
own.  It  was  what  he  had  always  been  looking  for  in  a 
woman,  and  had  given  up  the  hope  of  finding.  He 
spoke  as  if  he  was  forty.  He  was  serious  himself,  he 

56 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

averred;  he  had  reflected,  and  held  original  convictions. 
Though  a  rich  man's  son,  with  corresponding  prospects, 
his  heart  was  with  the  masses  and  he  labeled  himself  a 
Socialist. 

It  was  not  the  same  thing  to  be  a  Socialist  now,  he  ex- 
plained to  me,  as  it  had  been  twenty  years  before,  since 
so  many  men  of  education  and  position  had  adopted  this 
system  of  opinion.  In  fact,  his  own  conversion  had  been 
partly  due  to  young  Lord  Ernest  Hayes,  of  the  British 
Embassy,  who  had  spent  the  preceding  summer  at  New- 
port, though  his  inclinations  had  gone  in  this  direction 
ever  since  he  had  begun  to  think.  It  was  because  I  was 
so  open-eyed  and  so  sincere  that  he  had  been  drawn  to  me 
as  soon  as  he  had  started  in  to  notice  me.  It  was  true 
that  he  had  noticed  me  first  of  all  because  I  was  in  a 
subordinate  position  and  alone,  but,  having  done  so,  he 
had  found  a  queen  disguised  as  a  working-girl.  I  was  a 
queen  of  the  vital  things  in  life,  a  queen  of  intelligence, 
of  sympathy,  of  the  defiance  of  convention,  of  everything 
that  was  great.  I  was  the  woman  a  Socialist  could  love, 
of  whom  a  Socialist  could  make  his  star. 

"If  father  would  only  give  me  credit  for  being  twenty- 
six  and  a  man,"  the  dear  boy  went  on  earnestly,  "with  a 
man's  responsibility  to  society  and  the  human  race! 
But  he  doesn't.  He  thinks  I  ought  to  quit  being  a  Social- 
ist because  he  tells  me  to — or  else  he  doesn't  think  at  all. 
Nine  times  out  of  ten,  when  I  begin  to  say  what  I  believe, 
he  talks  of  something  else — just  as  he  did  last  night  in 
bringing  up  the  Goldboroughs." 

I  found  the  opportunity  for  which  I  had  been  looking 
during  his  impassioned  rhapsody.  The  mention  of  the 
Goldboroughs  gave  me  that  kind  of  chill  about  the  heart 
which  the  mist  imparted  to  the  hands  and  face. 

57 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

"You  know  them  all  very  well,"  I  said,  when  I  found 
an  opening  in  which  I  could  speak. 

"Oh  yes,",: he  admitted,  indifferently.  "Known  them 
all  my  life.  Father  represented  Meek  &  Brokenshire  in 
England  till  my  grandfather  died.  Goldborough  used  to 
be  an  impecunious  chap,  land  poor,  till  he  and  father 
began  to  pull  together.  Father's  been  able  to  give  him 
tips  on  the  market,  and  he's  given  father —  Well,  dad's 
always  had  a  taste  for  English  swells.  Never  could  stand 
the  Continental  kind — gilt  gingerbread  he's  called  'em — 
and  so,  well,  you  can  see." 

I  admitted  that  I  could  see,  going  on  to  ask  what  the 
Goldborough  family  consisted  of. 

There  was  Lord  Leatherhead,  the  eldest  son;  then 
there  were  two  younger  sons,  one  in  the  army  and  one 
preparing  for  the  Church;  and  there  were  three  girls. 

"Any  of  the  daughters  married?"  I  ventured,  timidly. 

There  was  nothing  forced  in  the  indifference  with  which 
he  made  his  explanations.  Laura  was  married  to  a 
banker  named  Bell;  Janet,  he  thought  he  had  heard,  was 
engaged  to  a  chap  in  the  Inverness  Rangers;  Cecilia — 
Cissie  they  usually  called  her — was  to  the  best  of  his 
knowledge  still  wholly  free,  but  the  best  of  his  knowledge 
did  not  go  far. 

I  pumped  up  my  courage  again.    "Is  she — nice?" 

"Oh,  nice  enough."  He  really  didn't  know  much 
about  her.  She  was  generally  away  at  school  when  he 
had  been  at  Goldborough  Castle.  When  she  was  there 
he  hadn't  seen  more  than  a  long-legged,  gawky  girl,Jrather 
good  at  tennis,  with  red  hair  hanging  down  her  back. 

Satisfied  with  these  replies,  I  went  on  to  tell  him  of 
my  interview  with  his  father  an  hour  or  two  before.  Of 
this  he  seized  on  one  point  with  some  ecstasy. 

58 


THE   HIGH    HEART 

"So  you  told  him  you'd  take  me!  Oh,  Alix — gosh!" 
The  exclamation  was  a  sigh  of  relief  as  well  as  of  rapt- 
ure. I  could]  smile  at  it*  because  it  was  so  boyish  and 
American,  especially  as  he  clasped  me  again  and  held 
me  in  a  way  that  almost  stopped  my  breath.  When  I 
freed  myself,  however,  I  said,  with  a  show  of  firmness: 

"Yes,  Hugh;  it's  what  I  said  to  him;  but  it's  not  what 
I'm  going  to  repeat  to  you." 

"Not  what  you're  going  to  repeat  to  me?  But  if  you 
said  it  to  him — " 

"I'm  still  not  obliged  to  accept  you — to-day." 
"But  if  you  mean  to  accept  me  at  all — " 
"Yes,  I  mean  to  accept  you — if  all  goes  well." 
"But  what  do  you  mean  by  that?" 
"I  mean — if  your  family  should  want  me." 
I  could  feel  his  clasp  relax  as  he  said:   "Oh,  if  you're 
going  to  wait  for  that!" 

"Hugh,  darling,  how  can  I  not  wait  for  it?  I  told  him 
I  couldn't  stop  to  consider  a  family;  but — but  I  see  I 
must." 

"Oh,  but  why?  We  shall  lose  everything  if  you  do 
that.  To  wait  for  my  family  to  want  you  to  marry 
me—" 

I  detached  myself  altogether  from  his  embrace,  pre- 
tending to  arrange  my  skirts  about  my  feet.  He  leaned 
forward,  his  fingers  interlocked,  his  elbows  on  his  knees, 
his  kind  young  face  disconsolate. 

"When  I  talked  to  your  father,"  I  tried  to  explain, 
"I  saw  chiefly  the  individual's  side  of  the  question  of 
marriage.  There  is  that  side;  but  there's  another. 
Marriage  doesn't  concern  a  man  and  a  woman  alone; 
it  concerns  a  family — sometimes  two." 

His  cry  came  out  with  the  explosive  force  of  a  slowly 

59 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

gathering  groan.  "Oh,  rot,  Alix!"  He  went  on  to  ex- 
postulate: "Can't  you  see?  If  we  were  to  go  now  and 
buy  a  license — and  be  married  by  the  first  clergyman  we 
met — the  family  couldn't  say  a  word." 

"Exactly;  it's  just  what  I  do  see.  Since  you  want  it 
I  could  force  myself  on  them — the  word  is  your  father's — 
and  they'd  have  no  choice  but  to  accept  me." 

"Well,  then?" 

"Hugh,  dear,  I — I  can't  do  it  that  way." 

"Then  what  way  could  you  do  it?" 

"I'm  not  sure  yet.  I  haven't  thought  of  it.  I  only 
know  in  advance  that  even  if  I  told  you  I'd  marry  you 
against — against  all  their  wishes,  I  couldn't  keep  my 
promise  in  the  end." 

"That  is,"  he  said,  bitterly,  "you  think  more  of  them 
than  you  do  of  me." 

I  put  my  hand  on  his  clasped  fingers.  "Nonsense. 
I — I  love  you.  Don't  you  see  I  do?  How  could  I  help 
loving  you  when  you've  been  so  kind  to  me?  But  mar- 
riage is  always  a  serious  thing  to  a  woman;  and  when  it 
comes  to  marriage  into  a  family  that  would  look  on  me 
as  a  great  misfortune — Hugh,  darling,  I  don't  see  how  I 
could  ever  face  it." 

" I  do,"  he  declared,  promptly.  "  It  isn't  so  bad  as  you 
think.  Families  come  round.  There  was  Tracy  Allen. 
Married  a  manicure.  The  Aliens  kicked  up  a  row  at 
first — wouldn't  see  Tracy  and  all  that;  but  now — " 

"Yes,  but,  Hugh,  I'm  not  a  manicure." 

"You're  a  nursery  governess." 

"By  accident — and  a  little  by  misfortune.  I  wasn't 
a  nursery  governess  when  I  first  knew  your  sister." 

"But  what  difference  does  that  make?" 

"It  makes  this  difference:  that  a  manicure  would  prob« 

60 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

ably  not  think  of  herself  as  your  equal.     She'd  expect 
coldness  at  first,  and  be  prepared  for  it." 

"Well,  couldn't  you?" 

"No,  because,  you  see,  I'm  your  equal." 

He  hunched  his  big  shoulders  impatiently.  "Oh,  Alix, 
I  don't  go  into  that.  I'm  a  Socialist.  I  don't  care  what 
you  are." 

"But  you  see  I  do.  I  don't  want  to  expose  myself  to 
being  looked  down  upon,  and  perhaps  despised,  for  the 
rest  of  my  life,  because  my  family  is  quite  as  good  as  your 
own." 

He  turned  slowly  from  peering  into  the  fog-bank  to 
fix  on  me  a  look  of  which  the  tenderness  and  pity  and 
incredulity  seemed  to  stab  me.  I  felt  the  helplessness  of 
a  sane  person  insisting  on  his  sanity  to  some  one  who 
believes  him  mad. 

"Don't  let  us  talk  about  those  things,  darling  little 
Alix,"  he  begged,  gently.  "Let's  do  the  thing  in  style, 
like  Tracy  Allen,  without  any  flummery  or  fluff.  What's 
family — once  you  get  away  from  the  idea?  When  I  sink 
it  I  should  think  that  you  could  afford  to  do  it  too.  If 
I  take  you  as  Tracy  Allen  took  Libby  Jaynes — that  was 
her  name,  I  remember  now — not  a  very  pretty  girl — but 
if  I  take  you  as  he  took  her,  and  you  take  me  as  she  took 
him—" 

"But,  Hugh,  I  can't.  If  I  were  Libby  Jaynes,  it's  pos- 
sible I  could;  but  as  it  is — " 

And  in  the  end  he  came  round  to  my  point  of  view. 
That  is  to  say,  he  appreciated  my  unwillingness  to  reward 
Mrs.  Rossiter's  kindness  to  me  by  creating  a  scandal, 
and  he  was  not  without  some  admiration  for  what  he 
called  my  "magnanimity  toward  his  old  man"  in  hesitat- 
ing to  drive  him  to  extremes. 

61 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

And  yet  it  was  Hugh  himself  who  drove  him  to  ex- 
tremes, over  questions  which  I  hardly  raised.  That  was 
some  ten  days  later,  when  Hugh  refused  point-blank  to 
sail  on  the  steamer  his  father  had  selected  to  take  him  on 
the  way  to  Strath-na-Cloid.  I  was,  of  course,  not  present 
at  the  interview,  but  having  heard  of  it  from  Hugh,  and 
got  his  account  corroborated  by  Ethel  Rossiter,  I  can 
describe  it  much  as  it  took  place. 

I  may  say  here,  perhaps,  that  I  still  remained  with 
Mrs.  Rossiter.  My  marching  orders,  expected  from  hour 
to  hour,  didn't  come.  Mrs.  Rossiter  herself  explained 
this  delay  to  me  some  four  days  after  that  scene  in  the 
breakfast  loggia  which  had  left  me  in  a  state  of  curiosity 
and  suspense. 

"Father  seems  to  think  that  if  he  insisted  on  your 
leaving  it  would  make  Hugh's  asking  you  to  marry  him 
too  much  a  matter  of  importance." 

"And  doesn't  he  himself  consider  it  a  matter  of  im- 
portance?" 

Mrs.  Rossiter  patted  a  tress  of  her  brown  hair  into 
place.  "No,  I  don't  think  he  does." 

Perhaps  nothing  from  the  beginning  had  made  me 
more  inwardly  indignant  than  the  simplicity  of  this  reply. 
I  had  imagined  him  raging  against  me  in  his  heart  and 
forming  deep,  dark  plans  to  destroy  me. 

"It  would  be  a  matter  of  importance  to  most  people," 
I  said,  trying  not  to  betray  my  feeling  of  offense. 

"Most  people  aren't  father,"  Mrs.  Rossiter  contented 
herself  with  replying,  still  occupied  with  her  tress  of 
hair. 

It  was  the  confidential  hour  of  the  morning  in  her  big 
chintzy  room.  The  maid  having  departed,  I  had  been 
answering  notes  and  was  still  sitting  at  the  desk.  It 

62 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

was  the  first  time  she  had  broached  the  subject  in  the 
four  days  which  had  been  to  me  a  period  of  so  much  rest- 
lessness. Wondering  at  this  detachment,  I  had  the  bold- 
ness to  question  her. 

"  Doesn't  it  seem  important  to  you?" 

She  threw  me  a  glance  over  her  shoulder,  turning  back 
to  the  mirror  at  once.  "What  have  I  got  to  do  with  it? 
It's  father's  affair — and  Hugh's." 

"And  mine,  too,  I  suppose?"  I  hazarded,  interroga- 
tively. 

To  this  she  said  nothing.  Her  silence  gave  me  to 
understand  what  so  many  other  little  things  impressed 
upon  me — that  I  didn't  count.  What  Hugh  did  or  didn't 
do  was  a  matter  for  the  Brokenshires  to  feel  and  for  J. 
Howard  Brokenshire  to  deal  with.  Ethel  Rossiter  her- 
self was  neither  for  me  nor  against  me.  I  was  her  nursery 
governess,  and  useful  as  an  unofficial  companion-secretary. 
As  long  as  it  was  not  forbidden  she  would  keep  me  in 
that  capacity;  when  the  order  came  she  would  send  me 
away.  As  for  anything  I  had  to  suffer,  that  was  my  own 
lookout.  Hugh  would  be  managed  by  his  father,  and 
from  that  fate  there  was  no  appeal.  There  was  nothing, 
therefore,  to  worry  Mrs.  Rossiter.  She  could  dismiss  the 
whole  matter,  as  she  presently  did,  to  discuss  her  troubles 
over  the  rival  attentions  of  Mr.  Millinger  and  Mr.  Scott, 
and  to  protest  against  their  making  her  so  conspicuous. 
She  had  the  kindness  to  say,  however,  just  as  she  was 
leaving  the  house  for  Bailey's  Beach: 

"I  don't  talk  to  you  about  this  affair  of  Hugh's  be- 
cause I  really  don't  see  much  of  father.  It's  his  business, 
you  see,  and  nothing  for  me  to  interfere  with.  With  that 
woman  there  I  hardly  ever  go  to  their  house,  and  he 
doesn't  often  come  here.  Her  mother's  with  them,  too, 

63 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

just  now — that's  old  Mrs.  Billing — a  harpy  if  ever  there 
was  one — and  with  all  the  things  people  are  saying!  If 
father  only  knew!  But,  of  course,  he'll  be  the  last  one 
to  hear  it." 

She  was  getting  into  her  car  by  this  time  and  I  seized 
no  more;  but  at  lunch  I  had  a  few  minutes  in  which  to 
bring  my  searchings  of  heart  before  Larry  Strangways. 

It  was  not  often  we  took  this  repast  alone  with  the 
children,  but  it  had  to  happen  sometimes.  Mrs.  Rossiter 
had  telephoned  from  Bailey's  that  she  had  accepted  the 
invitation  of  some  friends  and  we  were  not  to  expect  her. 
We  should  lunch,  however,  she  informed  me,  in  the 
breakfast  loggia,  where  the  open  air  would  act  as  chaperon 
and  insure  the  necessary  measure  of  propriety. 

So  long  as  Broke  and  Gladys  were  present  we  were  as 
demure  as  if  we  had  met  by  chance  in  the  restaurant  car 
of  a  train.  With  the  coffee  the  children  begged  to  be 
allowed  to  play  with  the  dogs  on  the  grass,  which  left 
us  for  a  few  minutes  as  man  and  woman. 

"How  is  everything?"  he  asked  at  once,  taking  on  that 
smile  which  seemed  to  put  him  outside  the  sphere  of  my 
interests. 

I  shrugged  my  shoulders  and  looked  down  at  the  spoon 
with  which  I  was  dabbling  in  my  cup.  "Oh,  just  the 
same,"  I  glanced  up  to  say.  "Tell  me.  Have  people  in 
this  country  no  other  measure  of  your  standing  but  that 
of  money?" 

"Have  they  any  such  measure  in  any  country?" 

I  was  beginning  with  the  words,  "Why,  yes,"  when  he 
interrupted  me. 

"Think." 

"  I  am  thinking,"  I  insisted.  "  In  England  and  Canada 
and  the  British  Empire  generally — " 

64 


THE   HIGH   HEART 

"You  attach  some  importance  to  birth.  Yes;  so  do 
we  here — when  it  goes  with  money.  Without  the  basis 
of  that  support  neither  you  nor  we  give  what  is  so  deli- 
riously called  birth  the  honor  of  a  second  thought." 

"Oh  yes,  we  do—" 

"When  it's  your  only  asset — yes;  but  you  do  it  alone. 
No  one  else  pays  it  any  attention." 

I  colored.     "That's  rather  cruel — " 

"It's  not  a  bit  more  cruel  than  the  fact.  Take  your 
case  and  mine  as  an  illustration.  As  the  estimate  of 
birth  goes  in  this  country,  I'm  as  well  born  as  the  ma- 
jority. My  -  ancestors  were  New-Englanders,  country 
doctors  and  lawyers  and  ministers — especially  the  minis- 
ters. But  as  long  as  I  haven't  the  cash  I'm  only  a  tutor, 
and  eat  at  the  second  table.  Jim  Rossiter's  forebears  were 
much  the  same  as  mine;  but  the  fact  that  he  has  a  hun- 
dred thousand  dollars  a  year  and  I've  hardly  got  two  is 
the  only  thing  that  would  be  taken  into  consideration  by 
any  one  in  either  the  United  Kingdom  or  the  United 
States.  It  would  be  the  same  if  I  descended  from  Cru- 
saders. If  I've  got  nothing  but  that  and  my  character 
to  recommend  me — "  He  raised  his  hand  and  snapped 
his  fingers  with  a  scornful  laugh.  "Take  your  case,"  he 
hurried  on  as  I  was  about  to  speak.  "You're  probably 
like  me,  sprung  of  a  line  of  professional  men — " 

"And  soldiers,"  I  interrupted,  proudly.  "The  first  of 
my  family  to  settle  in  Canada  was  a  General  Adare  in 
the  middle  of  the  seventeen  hundreds.  He'd  been  in  the 
garrison  at  Halifax  and  chose  to  remain  in  Nova  Scotia." 
Perhaps  there  was  some  boastfulness  in  my  tone  as  I 
added,  "He  came  of  the  famous  Fighting  Adares  of  the 
County  Limerick." 

"And  all  that  isn't  worth  a  row  of  pins — except  to 

65 


THE   HIGH   HEART 

yourself.  If  you  were  the  daughter  of  a  miner  who'd 
struck  it  rich  you'd  be  a  candidate  for  the  British  peer- 
age. You'd  be  received  in  the  best  houses  in  London; 
you  could  marry  a  duke  and  no  one  would  say  you  nay. 
As  it  is—" 

"As  it  is,"  I  said,  tremulously,  "I'm  just  a  nursery 
governess,  and  there's  no  getting  away  from  the  fact." 

"Not  until  you  get  away  from  the  condition." 

"So  that  when  I  told  Hugh  Brokenshire  the  other  day 
that  in  point  of  family  I  was  his  equal — " 

"He  probably  didn't  believe  you." 

The  memory  of  Hugh's  look  still  rankled  in  me.  "  No, 
I  don't  think  he  did." 

"Of  course  he  didn't.  As  the  world  counts — as  we  all 
count — no  poor  family,  however  noble,  is  the  equal  of 
any  rich  family,  however  base."  There  was  that  trans- 
formation of  his  smile  from  something  sunny  to  some- 
thing hard  which  I  had  noticed  once  before,  as  he  went 
on  to  add,  "If  you  want  to  marry  Hugh  Brokenshire — " 

"Which  I  do,"  I  interposed,  defiantly. 

"Then  you  must  enter  into  his  game  as  he  enters  into 
it  himself.  He  thinks  of  himself  as  doing  the  big  roman- 
tic thing.  He's  marrying  a  poor  girl  who  has  nothing 
but  herself  as  guaranty.  That  your  great-grandfather 
was  a  general  and  one  of  the — what  did  you  call  them? — 
Fighting  Adares  of  the  County  Cork  would  mean  no 
more  to  him  than  if  you  said  you  were  descended  from 
the  Lacedaemonians  and  the  dragon's  teeth.  As  far  as 
that  goes,  you  might  as  well  be  an  immigrant  girl  from 
Sweden;  you  might  as  well  be  a  cook.  He's  stooping  to 
pick  up  his  diamond  from  the  mire,  instead  of  buying  it 
from  a  jeweler's  window.  Very  well,  then,  you  must  let 
him  stoop.  You  mustn't  try  to  underestimate  his  con- 

66 


THE    HIGH    HEART 


descension.  You  mustn't  tell  frirn  you  were  once  in  & 
jeweler's  window,  and  only  fell  into  the  mire  by  chance  —  " 

"Because,"  I  smiled,  "the  mire  is  where  I  belong,  until 
I'm  taken  out  of  it." 

"We  belong,"  he  stated,  judicially,  "where  the  world 
puts  us.  If  we're  wise  we'll  stay  there  —  till  we  can  meet 
the  world's  own  terms  for  getting  out." 


CHAPTER  V 

T  COME  at  last  to  Hugh's  defiance  of  his  father.  It  took 
1  place  not  only  without  my  incitement,  but  without  my 
knowledge.  No  one  could  have  been  more  sick  with  mis- 
giving than  I  when  I  learned  that  the  boy  had  left  his 
father's  house  and  gone  to  a  hotel.  If  I  was  to  blame  at 
all  it  was  in  mentioning  from  time  to  time  his  condition 
of  dependence. 

"You  haven't  the  right  to  defy  your  father's  wishes," 
I  said  to  him,  "so  long  as  you're  living  on  his  money. 
What  it  comes  to  is  that  he  pays  you  to  do  as  he  tells 
you.  If  you  don't  do  as  he  tells  you,  you're  not  earning 
your  allowance  honestly." 

The  point  of  view  was  new  to  him.  "But  if  I  was 
making  a  living  of  my  own?" 

"Ah,  that  would  be  different." 

"You'd  marry  me  then?" 

I  considered  this.  "It  would  still  have  to  depend,"  !_ 
was  obliged  to  say  at  last. 

"Depend  on  what?" 

"On  the  degree  to  which  you  made  yourself  your  own 
master." 

"I  should  be  my  own  master  if  I  earned  a  good  income." 

I  admitted  this. 

"Very  well,"  he  declared,  with  decision.  "I  shall  earn 
it." 

68 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

I  didn't  question  his  power  to  do  that.  I  had  heard 
so  much  of  the  American  man's  ability  to  make  money 
that  I  took  it  for  granted,  as  I  did  a  bird's  capacity  for 
flight.  As  far  as  Hugh  was  concerned,  it  seemed  to  me 
more  a  matter  of  intention  than  of  opportunity.  I 
reasoned  that  if  he  made  up  his  mind  to  be  independent, 
independent  he  would  be.  It  would  rest  with  him.  It 
was  not  of  the  future  I  was  thinking  so  much  as  of  the 
present;  and  in  the  present  I  was  chiefly  dodging  his  plea 
that  we  settle  the  matter  by  taking  the  law  into  our  own 
hands. 

"It  won't  be  as  bad  as  you  think,"  he  kept  urging. 
"Father  would  be  sure  to  come  round  to  you  if  you  were 
my  wife.  He  never  quarrels  with  the  accomplished  fact. 
That's  been  part  of  the  secret  of  his  success.  He'll  fight 
a  thing  as  long  as  he  can;  but  when  it's  carried  over 
his  head  no  one  knows  better  than  he  how  to  make  the 
best  of  it." 

"But,  Hugh,  I  don't  want  to  have  him  make  the  best 
of  it  that  way — at  least,  so  long  as  you're  not  your  own 
master." 

One  day  at  the  Casino  he  pointed  out  Libby  Jaynes 
to  me.  I  was  there  in  charge  of  the  children,  and  he 
managed  to  slip  over  from  the  tennis  he  was  playing  for 
a  word: 

"There  she  is — that  girl  with  the  orange-silk  sweater." 

The  point  of  his  remark  was  that  Libby  Jaynes  was 
one  of  a  group  of  half  a  dozen  people,  and  was  apparently 
received  at  Newport  like  anybody  else.  The  men  were 
in  flannels;  the  women  in  the  short  skirts  and  easy  atti- 
tudes developed  by  a  sporting  life.  The  silk  sweater  in 
its  brilliant  hues  was  to  the  Casino  grounds  as  the  parrot 
to  Brazilian  woods.  Libby  Jaynes  wasn't  pretty;  her 

69 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

lips  were  too  widely  parted  and  her  teeth  too  big;  but 
her  figure  was  adapted  to  the  costume  of  the  day,  and  her 
head  to  the  slouching  panama.  She  wore  both  with  a 
decided  chic.  She  was  the  orange  spot  where  there  was 
another  of  purple  and  another  of  pink  and  another  of 
bright  emerald-green.  As  far  as  I  could  see  no  one  remem- 
bered that  she  had  ever  rubbed  men's  finger-nails  in  the 
barber's  room  of  a  hotel,  and  she  certainly  betrayed  no 
sign  of  it.  It  was  what  Hugh  begged  me  to  observe.  If 
I  liked  I  could  within  a  year  be  a  member  of  this  privi- 
leged troop  instead  of  an  outsider  looking  on.  "You'd 
be  just  as  good  as  she  is,"  he  declared  with  a  naivete  I 
couldn't  help  taking  with  a  smile. 

I  was  about  to  say,  "But  I  don't  feel  inferior  to  her  as 
it  is,"  when  I  recalled  the  queer  look  of  incredulity  he 
had  given  me  on  the  beach. 

And  then  one  morning  I  heard  he  had  quarreled  with 
his  father.  It  was  Hugh  who  told  me  first,  but  Mrs. 
Rossiter  gave  me  all  the  details  within  an  hour  afterward. 

It  appeared  that  they  had  had  a  dinner-party  in  honor 
of  old  Mrs.  Billing  which  had  gone  off  with  some  success. 
The  guests  having  left,  the  family  had  gathered  in  Mil- 
dred's sitting-room  to  give  the  invalid  an  account  of  the 
entertainment.  It  was  one  of  those  domestic  reunions 
on  which  the  household  god  insisted  from  time  to  time, 
so  that  his  wife  should  seem  to  have  that  support  from 
his  children  which  both  he  and  she  knew  she  didn't  have. 
The  Jack  Brokenshires  were  there,  and  Hugh,  and  Ethel 
Rossiter. 

It  was  exactly  the  scene  for  a  tragi-comedy,  and  had 
the  kind  of  setting  theatrical  producers  liked  before  the 
new  scene-painters  set  the  note  of  allegorical  simplicity. 
Mildred  had  the  best  corner  room  up-stairs,  though,  like 

70 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

the  rest  of  the  house,  her  surroundings  suffered  from  her 
father's  taste  for  the  Italianate  and  over-rich.  Heavy 
dark  cabinets,  heavy  dark  chairs,  gilt  candelabra,  and 
splendidly  brocaded  stuffs  threw  the  girl's  wan  face  and 
weak  figure  into  prominence.  I  think  she  often  sighed 
for  pretty  papers  and  cretonnes,  for  Sevres  and  colored 
prints,  but  she  took  her  tapestries  and  old  masters  and 
majolica  as  decreed  by  a  power  she  couldn't  question. 
When  everything  was  done  for  her  comfort  the  poor  thing 
had  nothing  to  do  for  herself. 

The  room  had  the  further  resemblance  to  a  scene  on 
the  stage  since,  as  I  was  given  to  understand,  no  one  felt 
the  reality  of  the  friendliness  enacted.  To  all  J.  How- 
ard's children  it  was  odious  that  he  should  worship  a 
woman  who  was  younger  than  Mildred  and  very  little 
older  than  Ethel.  They  had  loved  their  mother,  who  had 
been  plain.  They  resented  the  fact  that  their  father  had 
got  hold  of  her  money  for  himself,  had  made  her  un- 
happy, and  had  forgotten  her.  That  he  should  have  be- 
come infatuated  with  a  girl  who  was  their  own  con- 
temporary would  have  been  a  humiliation  to  them  in  any 
case;  but  when  the  story  of  his  fight  for  her  became 
public  property,  when  it  was  the  joke  of  the  Stock  Ex- 
change and  the  subject  of  leading  articles  in  the  press, 
they  could  only  hold  their  heads  high  and  carry  the  situa- 
tion with  bravado.  It  was  a  proof  of  his  grip  on  New 
York  that  he  could  put  Editha  Billing  where  he  wished 
to  see  her,  and  find  no  authority,  social  or  financial,  bold 
enough  to  question  him;  it  was  equally  a  proof  of  his 
dominance  in  his  family  that  neither  son  nor  daughter 
could  treat  his  new  wife  with  anything  but  deference. 
She  was  the  maitresse  en  titre  to  whom  even  the  princes 
and  princesses  had  to  bow. 
6  71 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

They  were  bowing  on  this  evening  by  treating  old  Mrs. 
Billing  as  if  they  liked  her  and  counted  her  one  of  them- 
selves. As  the  mother  of  the  favorite  she  could  reason- 
ably claim  this  homage,  and  no  one  refused  it  but  poor 
Hugh.  He  turned  his  back  on  it.  Mildred  being 
obliged  to 'lie  on  a  couch,  he  put  himself  at  her  feet,  re- 
fusing thus  to  be  witness  of  what  he  called  a  flattering 
hypocrisy  that  sickened  him.  That  went  on  in  the  dimly, 
richly  lighted  room  behind  him,  where  the  others  sat 
about,  pretending  to  be  gay. 

Then  the  match  went  into  the  gunpowder  all  at  once. 

"I'm  the  more  glad  the  evening  has  been  pleasant," 
J.  Howard  observed,  blandly,  "since  we  may  consider  it 
a  farewell  to  Hugh.  He's  sailing  on — " 

Hugh  merely  said  over  his  shoulder.  "No,  father;  I'm 
not." 

The  startled  silence  was  just  long  enough  to  be  noticed 
before  the  father  went  on,  as  if  he  had  not  been  inter- 
rupted: 

"He's  sailing  on — " 

"No,  father;   I'm  not." 

There  was  no  change  in  Hugh's  tone  any  more  than  in 
his  parent's.  I  gathered  from  Mrs.  Rossiter  that  all  pres- 
ent held  their  breaths  as  if  in  expectation  that  this  blas- 
phemer would  be  struck  dead.  Mentally  they  stood  off, 
too,  like  the  chorus  in  an  opera,  to  see  the  great  tragedy 
acted  to  the  end  without  interference  of  their  own.  Jack 
Brokenshire,  who  was  fingering  an  extinct  cigar,  twiddled 
it  nervously  at  his  lips.  Pauline  clasped  her  hands  and 
leaned  forward  in  excitement.  Mrs.  Brokenshire  affected 
to  hear  nothing  and  arranged  her  five  rows_of  pearls. 
Mrs.  Billing,  whom  Mrs.  Rossiter  described  as  a  condor 
with  lace  on  her  head  and  diamonds  round  her  shrunken 

72 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

neck,  looked  from  one  to  another  through  her  lorgnette, 
which  she  fixed  at  last  on  her  son-in-law.  Ethel  Rossiter 
kept  herself  detached.  Knowing  that  Hugh  had  been 
riding  for  a  fall,  she  expected  him  now  to  come  his  cropper. 

It  caused  some  surprise  to  the  lookers-on  that  Mr. 
Brokenshire  should  merely  press  the  electric  bell.  "Tell 
Mr.  Spellman  to  come  here,"  he  said,  quietly,  to  the  foot- 
man who  answered  his  ring. 

Mr.  Spellman  appeared,  a  smooth-shaven  man  of  in- 
definite age,  with  dark  shadows  in  the  face,  and  cadaver- 
ous. His  master  instructed  him  with  a  word  or  two. 
There  was  silence  during  the  minute  that  followed  the 
man's  withdrawal,  a  silence  ominous  with  expectation. 
When  Spellman  had  returned  and  handed  a  long  envelope 
to  his  employer  and  withdrawn  again,  the  suspended 
action  was  renewed. 

Hugh,  who  was  playing  in  seeming  unconcern  with  the 
tassel  of  Mildred's  dressing-gown,  had  given  no  attention 
to  the  small  drama  going  on  behind  him. 

"Hugh,  here's  father,"  Mildred  whispered. 

Her  white  face  was  drawn;  she  was  fond  of  Hugh;  she 
seemed  to  scent  the  catastrophe.  Hugh  continued  to 
play  with  the  tassel  without  glancing  upward. 

It  was  not  J.  Howard's  practice  to  raise  his  voice  or 
to  speak  with  emphasis  except  when  the  occasion  de- 
manded it.  He  was  very  gentle  now  as  his  hand  slipped 
over  Hugh's  shoulder. 

"Hugh,  here's  your  ticket  and  your  letter  of  credit. 
I  asked  Spellman  to  see  to  them  when  he  was  in  New 
York." 

The  young  man  barely  turned  his  head.  "Thank 
you,  father;  but  I  don't  want  them.  I  can't  go  over — 
because  I'm  going  to  marry  Miss  Adare." 

73 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

As  it  was  no  time  for  the  chorus  of  an  opera  to  inter- 
vene, all  waited  for  what  would  happen  next.  Old  Mrs. 
Billing,  turning  her  lorgnette  on  the  rebellious  boy,  saw 
nothing  but  the  back  of  his  head.  The  father's  hand 
wavered  for  a  minute  over  the  son's  shoulder  and  let  the 
envelope  fall.  Hugh  continued  to  play  with  the  tassel. 

For  once  Howard  Brokenshire  was  disconcerted.  Hav- 
ing stepped  back  a  pace  or  two,  he  said  in  his  quiet  voice, 
"What  did  you  say,  Hugh?" 

The  answer  was  quite  distinct.  "I  said  I  was  going 
to  marry  Miss  Adare." 

"Who's  that?" 

"You  know  perfectly  well,  father.  She's  Ethel's  nurs- 
ery governess.  You've  been  to  see  her,  and  she's  told 
you  she's  going  to  marry  me." 

"Oh,  but  I  thought  that  was  over  and  done  with." 

"No,  you  didn't,  father.  Please  don't  try  to  come 
that.  I  told  you  nearly  a  fortnight  ago  that  I  was  per- 
fectly serious — and  I  am." 

"Oh,  are  you?  Well,  so  am  I.  The  Goldboroughs  are 
expecting  you  for  the  twelfth — " 

"The  Goldboroughs  can  go  to — " 

"Hugh!"  It  was  Mildred  who  cut  him  short  with  a 
cry  that  was  almost  a  petition. 

"All  right,  Milly,"  he  assured  her  under  his  breath. 
"I'm  not  going  to  make  a  scene." 

That  J.  Howard  expected  to  become  the  principal  in 
a  duel,  under  the  eyes  of  excited  witnesses,  I  do  not  think. 
If  he  had  chosen  to  speak  when  witnesses  were  present, 
it  was  because  of  his  assumption  that  Hugh's  submission 
would  be  thus  more  easily  secured.  As  it  was  his  policy 
never  to  enter  into  a  conflict  of  authorities,  or  of  will 
against  will,  he  was  for  the  moment  nonplussed.  I  have 

74 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

an  idea  he  would  have  retired  gracefully,  waiting  for  a 
more  convenient  opportunity,  had  it  not  been  for  old 
Mrs.  Billing's  lorgnette. 

It  will,  perhaps,  not  interrupt  my  narrative  too  much 
if  I  say  here  that  of  all  the  important  women  he  knew  he 
was  most  afraid  of  her.  She  had  coached  him  when  he  was 
a  beginner  in  life  and  she  an  established  young  woman  of 
the  world.  She  must  then  have  had  a  certain  beautt  du 
didble  and  that  nameless  thing  which  men  find  exciting 
in  women.  I  have  been  told  that  she  was  an  example 
of  the  modern  Helen  of  Troy,  over  whom  men  fight  while 
she  holds  the  stakes,  and  I  can  believe  it.  Her  history 
was  said  to  be  full  of  dramatic  episodes,  though  I  never 
knew  what  they  were.  Even  at  sixty,  which  was  the 
age  at  which  I  saw  her,  she  had  that  kind  of  presence 
which  challenges  and  dares.  She  was  ugly  and  hook- 
nosed and  withered;  but  she  couldn't  be  overlooked. 
To  me  she  suggested  that  Madame  Poisson  who  so  care- 
fully prepared  her  daughter  to  become  the  Marquise  de 
Pompadour.  Stacy  Grainger,  I  believe,  was  the  Louis 
XV.  of  her  earlier  plans,  though,  like  a  born  strategist,  she 
changed  her  methods  when  reasons  arose  for  doing  so.  I 
shall  return  to  this  later  in  my  story.  At  present  I  only 
want  to  say  that  I  do  not  believe  that  Mr.  Brokenshire 
would  have  pushed  things  to  an  issue  that  night  had  her 
lorgnette  not  been  there  to  provoke  him. 

"Has  it  occurred  to  you,  Hugh,"  he  asked,  in  his  soft- 
est tones,  on  reaching  a  stand  before  the  chimney  which 
was  filled  with  dwarfed  potted  palms,  "that  I  pay  you  an 
allowance  of  six  thousand  dollars  a  year?" 

Hugh  continued  to  play  with  the  tassel  of  Mildred's 
gown.  "Yes,  father;  and  as  a  Socialist  I  don't  think  it 
right.  I've  been  coming  to  the  decision  that — " 

75 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

"You'll  spare  us  your  poses  and  let  the  Socialist  non- 
sense drop.  I  simply  want  to  remind  you — " 

"I  can't  let  the  Socialist  nonsense  drop,  father,  be- 
cause— " 

The  tartness  of  the  tone  betrayed  a  rising  irritation. 

"Be  good  enough  to  turn  round  this  way.  I  don't 
understand  what  you're  saying.  Perhaps  you'll  take  a 
chair,  and  leave  poor  Mildred  alone." 

Mildred  whispered:  "Oh,  Hugh,  be  careful.  I'll  do 
anything  for  you  if  you  won't  get  him  worked  up.  It  '11 
hurt  his  face — and  his  poor  eye." 

Hugh  slouched — the  word  is  Mrs.  Rossiter's — to  a  near- 
by chair,  where  he  sat  down  in  a  hunched  position,  his 
hands  in  his  trousers  pockets  and  his  feet  thrust  out  be- 
fore him.  The  attitude  was  neither  graceful  nor  respect- 
ful to  the  company. 

"It's  no  use  talking,  father,"  he  declared,  sulkily,  "be- 
cause I've  said  my  last  word." 

"Oh  no,  you  haven't,  for  I  haven't  said  my  first." 

In  the  tone  in  which  Hugh  cried  out  there  must  have 
been  something  of  the  plea  of  a  little  boy  before  he  is 
punished: 

"Please  don't  give  me  any  orders,  father,  because  I 
sha'n't  be  able  to  obey  them." 

"Hugh,  your  expression  'sha'n't  be  able  to  obey'  is 
not  in  the  vocabulary  with  which  I'm  familiar." 

"But  it's  in  the  one  with  which  I  am." 

"Then  you've  probably  learnt  it  from  Ethel's  little 
servant — I've  forgotten  the  name — " 

Hugh  spoke  with  spirit.  "She's  not  a  servant;  and 
her  name  is  Alexandra  Adare.  Please,  dad,  try  to  fix 
it  in  your  memory.  You'll  find  you'll  have  a  lot  of  use 
for  it." 

76 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

"Don't  be  impertinent." 

"I'm  not  impertinent.  I'm  stating  a  fact.  I  ask 
every  one  here  to  remember  that  name — " 

"We  needn't  bring  any  one  else  into  this  foolish  busi- 
ness. It's  between  you  and  me.  Even  so,  I  wish  to  have 
no  argument." 

"Nor  I." 

"Then  in  that  case  we  understand  each  other.  You'll 
be  with  the  Goldboroughs  for  the  twelfth — " 

Hugh    spoke   very    distinctly:     "Father — I'm — not — 
going." 

In  the  silence  that  followed  one  could  hear  the  ticking 
of  the  mantelpiece  clock. 

"Then  may  I  ask  where  you  are  going?" 

Hugh  raised  himself  from  his  sprawling  attitude,  hold- 
ing his  bulky  young  figure  erect.  "I'm  going  to  earn  a 
living." 

Some  one,  perhaps  old  Mrs.  Billing,  laughed.  The 
father  continued  to  speak  with  great  if  dangerous  courtesy. 

"Ah?  Indeed L  That's  interesting.  And  may  I  ask 
at  what?" 

"At  what  I  can  find." 

"That's  more  interesting  still.  Earning  a  living  in 
New  York  is  like  the  proverbial  looking  for  the  needle 
in  the  haystack.  The  needle  is  there,  but  it  takes — " 

"Very  good  eyesight  to  detect  it.  All  right,  dad.  I 
shall  be  on  the  job." 

"Good!    And  when  do  you  propose  to  begin?" 

It  had  not  been  Hugh's  intention  to  begin  at  any  time 
in  particular,  but,  thus  challenged,  he  said,  boldly,  "To- 
morrow." 

"That's  excellent.  But  why  put  it  off  so  long?  I 
should  think  you'd  start  out — to-night." 

77 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

Mrs.  Billing's  "Ha-a!"  subdued  and  prolonged,  was 
like  that  tense  exclamation  which  the  spectators  utter  at 
some  exciting  moment  of  a  game.  It  took  no  sides,  but 
it  did  justice  to  a  sporting  situation.  As  Hugh  told  me 
the  story  on  the  following  day  he  confessed  that  more 
than  any  other  occurrence  it  put  the  next  move  "up  to 
him."  According  to  Ethel  Rossiter  he  lumbered  heavily 
to  his  feet  and  crossed  the  room  toward  his  father.  He 
began  to  speak  as  he  neared  the  architectural  chimney- 
piece,  merely  throwing  the  words  at  J.  Howard  as  he 
passed. 

"All  right,  father.     Since  you  wish  it — " 

"Oh  no.  My  wishes  are  out  of  it.  As  you  defy  those 
I've  expressed,  there's  no  more  to  be  said." 

Hugh  paused  in  his  walk,  his  hands  in  the  pockets  of 
his  dinner-jacket,  and  eyed  his  father  obliquely.  "  I  don't 
defy  your  wishes,  dad.  I  only  claim  the  right,  as  a  man 
of  twenty-six,  to  live  my  own  life.  If  you  wouldn't  make 
yourself  God — " 

The  handsome  hand  went  up.  "We'll  not  talk  about 
that,  if  you  please.  I'd  no  intention  of  discussing  the 
matter  any  longer.  I  merely  thought  that  if  I  were 
in  the  situation  in  which  you've  placed  yourself,  I  should 
be — getting  busy.  Still,  if  you  want  to  stay  the  night — 

"Oh,  not  in  the  least."  Hugh  was  as  nonchalant  as 
he  had  the  power  to  make  himself.  "Thanks  awfully, 
father,  all  the  same."  He  looked  round  on  the  circle 
where  each  of  the  chorus  sat  with  an  appropriate  ex- 
pression of  horror — that  is,  with  the  exception  of  the  old 
lady  Billing,  who,  with  her  lorgnette  still  to  her  eyes, 
nodded  approval  of  so  much  spirit.  "Good  night,  every 
one,"  Hugh  continued,  coolly,  and  made  his  way  toward 
the  door. 

78 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

He  had  nearly  reached  it  when  Mildred  cried  out: 
"Hugh!  Hughie!  You're  not  going  away  like  that!" 

He  retraced  his  steps  to  the  couch,  where  he  stooped, 
pressed  his  sister's  thin  fingers,  and  kissed  her.  In  doing 
so  he  was  able  to  whisper: 

"Don't  worry,  Milly  dear.  Going  to  be  all  right. 
Shall  be  a  man  now.  See  you  soon  again."  Having 
raised  himself,  he  nodded  once  more.  "Good  night, 
every  one." 

Mrs.  Rossiter  said  that  he  was  so  much  like  a  young 
fellow  going  to  his  execution  that  she  couldn't  respond 
by  a  word. 

Hugh  then  marched  up  to  his  father  and  held  out  his 
hand.  "Good  night,  dad.  We  needn't  have  any  ill- 
feeling  even  if  we  don't  agree." 

But  the  Great  Dispenser  didn't  see  him.  An  imposing 
figure  standing  with  his  hands  behind  his  back,  he  kept 
his  fingers  clasped.  Looking  through  his  son  as  if  he 
was  no  more  than  air,  he  remarked  to  the  company  in 
general: 

"I  don't  think  I've  ever  seen  Daisy  Burke  appear 
better  than  she  did  to-night.  She's  usually  so  badly 
dressed."  He  turned  with  a  little  deferential  stoop  to 
where  Mrs.  Brokenshire — whom  Ethel  Rossiter  described 
as  a  rigid,  exquisite  thing  staring  off  into  vacancy — sat  on 
a  small  upright  chair.  "What  do  you  think,  darling?" 

Hugh  could  hear  the  family  trying  to  rally  to  the  hint 
that  had  thus  been  given  them,  and  doing  their  best  to 
discuss  the  merits  and  demerits  of  Daisy  Burke,  as  he 
stood  in  the  big,  square  hall  outside,  wondering  where  he 
should  seek  shelter. 


CHAPTER  VI 

WHAT  Hugh  did  in  the  end  was  simple.  Finding 
the  footman  who  was  accustomed  to  valet  him,  he 
ordered  him  to  bring  a 'supply  of  linen  and  some  suits  to 
a  certain  hotel  early  on  the  following  morning.  He  then 
put  on  a  light  overcoat  and  a  cap  and  left  the  house. 

The  first  few  steps  from  the  door  he  closed  behind  him 
gave  him,  so  he  told  me  next  day,  the  strangest  feeling  he 
had  ever  experienced.  He  was  consciously  venturing 
forth  into  life  without  any  of  his  usual  supports.  What 
those  supports  had  been  he  had  never  realized  till  then. 
He  had  always  been  stayed  by  some  one  else's  authority 
and  buoyed  all  round  by  plenty  of  money.  Now  he  felt, 
to  change  the  simile  as  he  changed  it  himself,  as  if  he  had 
been  thrown  out  of  the  nest  before  having  learnt  to 
fly.  As  he  walked  resolutely  down  the  dark  driveway 
toward  Ochre  Point  Avenue  he  was  mentally  hovering 
and  balancing  and  trembling,  with  a  tendency  to  flop. 
There  was  no  longer  a  downy  bed  behind  him;  no  longer 
a  parent  bill  to  bring  him  his  daily  worm.  The  outlook 
which  had  been  one  thing  when  he  was  within  that  im- 
posing, many-lighted  mansion  became  another  now  that 
he  was  turning  his  back  on  it  permanently  and  in  the 
dark. 

This  he  confessed  when  he  had  surprised  me  by  appear- 
ing at  the  breakfast  loggia,  where  I  was  having  my  coffee 

80 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

with  little  Gladys  Rossiter  somewhere  between  half  past 
eight  and  nine.  He  was  not  an  early  riser,  except  when 
the  tide  enticed  him  to  get  up  at  some  unusual  hour  to 
take  his  dip,  and  even  then  he  generally  went  back  to  bed. 
To  see  him  coming  through  the  shrubbery  now,  carefully 
dressed,  pallid  and  grave,  half  told  me  his  news  before  he 
had  spoken. 

Luckily  Gladys  was  too  young  to  follow  anything  we 
said,  so  that  after  having  joyfully  kissed  her  uncle  Hugh 
she  went  on  with  her  bread  and  milk.  Hugh  took  a  cup 
of  coffee,  sitting  sidewise  to  the  table  of  which  only  one 
end  was  spread,  while  I  was  at  the  head.  It  was  the 
hour  of  the  day  when  we  were  safest.  Mrs.  Rossiter 
never  left  her  room  before  eleven  at  earliest,  and  no  one 
else  whom  we  were  afraid  of  was  likely  to  be  about. 

"Well,  the  fat's  all  in  the  fire,  little  Alix,"  were  the 
words  in  which  he  announced  his  position.  "I'm  out  on 
my  own  at  last." 

I  could  risk  nothing  in  the  way  of  tenderness,  partly 
because  of  the  maid  who  was  coming  and  going,  and 
partly  because  that  was  something  Gladys  would  under- 
stand. I  tried  to  let  him  see  by  my  eyes,  however,  the 
sympathy  I  felt.  I  knew  he  was  taking  the  new  turn  of 
events  soberly,  and  soberly,  with  an  immense  semi- 
maternal  yearning  over  him,  I  couldn't  help  taking  it 
myself. 

He  told  his  tale  quietly,  with  almost  no  interruption 
on  my  part.  I  was  pleased  to  note  that  he  expressed 
nothing  in  the  way  of  recrimination  toward  his  father. 
With  the  exception  of  an  occasional  fling  at  old  Mrs. 
Billing,  whom  he  seemed  to  regard  as  a  joss  or  a  bottle 
imp,  he  was  temperate,  too,  in  his  remarks  about  every- 
body else.  I  liked  his  sporting  attitude  and  told  him  so. 

81 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

"Oh,  there's  nothing  sporting  in  it,"  he  threw  off  with 
a  kind  of  serious  carelessness.  "I'm  a  man;  that's  all. 
As  I  look  back  over  the  past  I  seem  to  have  been 
a  doll." 

I  asked  him  what  were  his  plans.  He  said  he  was 
going  to  apply  to  his  cousin,  Andrew  Brew,  of  Boston, 
going  on  to  tell  me  more  about  the  Brews  than  I  had 
ever  heard.  He  was  surprised  that  I  knew  nothing  of 
the  important  house  of  Brew,  Borrodaile  &  Co.,  of  Boston, 
who  did  such  an  important  business  with  England  and 
Europe  in  general.  I  replied  that  in  Canada  all  my  con- 
nections had  been  with  the  law,  and  with  Service  people 
in  England.  I  noticed,  as  I  had  noticed  before  in  saying 
things  like  that,  that,  in  common  with  most  American 
business  men,  he  looked  on  the  Army  and  Navy  as  in- 
ferior occupations.  There  was  no  money  in  either. 
That  in  itself  was  sufficient  to  condemn  them  in  the  eyes 
of  a  gentleman. 

I  forgot  to  be  nettled,  as  I  sometimes  had  been,  because 
of  finding  myself  so  deeply  immersed  in  his  interests. 
Up  to  that  minute,  too,  I  had  had  no  idea  that  he  had 
so  much  pride  of  birth.  He  talked  of  the  Brews  and  the 
Brokenshires  as  if  they  had  been  Bourbons  and  Hohen- 
zollerns,  making  me  feel  a  veritable  Libby  Jaynes  never 
to  have  heard  of  them.  Of  the  Brews  in  particular  he 
spoke  with  reverence.  There  had  been  Brews  in  Boston, 
he  said,  since  the  year  one.  Like  all  other  American 
families,  as  I  came  to  know  later,  they  were  descended 
from  three  brothers.  In  Norfolk  and  Suffolk  they  had 
been,  so  I  guessed — though  Hugh  passed  the  subject  over 
with  some  vagueness — of  comparatively  humble  stock, 
but  under  the  American  flag  they  had  acquired  money, 
a  quasi-nobility  and  coats  of  arms.  To  hear  a  man  boast- 

82 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

ing,  however  modestly — and  he  was  modest — of  these 
respectable  nobodies,  who  had  simply  earned  money 
and  saved  it,  made  me  blush  inwardly  in  such  a  way 
that  I  vowed  never  to  mention  the  Fighting  Adares 
again. 

I  could  do  this  with  no  diminution  of  my  feeling  for 
poor  Hugh.  His  artless  glory  in  a  line  of  ancestry  of 
which  the  fame  had  never  gone  beyond  the  shores  of 
Massachusetts  Bay  was,  after  all,  a  harmless  bit  of  vanity. 
It  took  nothing  away  from  his  kindness,  his  good  inten- 
tions, or  his  solid  worth.  When  he  asked  me  how  I  should 
care  to  live  in  Boston  I  replied  that  I  should  like  it  very 
much.  I  had  always  heard  of  it  as  a  pleasant  city  of 
English  characteristics  and  affiliations. 

Wherever  he  was,  I  told  him,  I  should  be  at  home — 
if  I  made  up  my  mind  to  marry  him. 

"But  you  have  made  up  your  mind,  haven't  you?"  he 
asked,  anxiously. 

I  was  obliged  to  reply  with  frankness,  "Not  quite, 
Hugh,  because — " 

"Then  what's  the  use  of  my  getting  into  this  hole, 
if  it  isn't  to  be  with  you?" 

"You  mean  by  the  hole  the  being,  as  you  call  it,  out 
on  your  own?  But  I  thought  you  did  that  to  be  a  Social- 
ist— and  a  man." 

"I've  done  it  because  father  won't  let  me  marry  you 
any  other  way." 

"Then  if  that's  all,  Hugh—" 

"But  it  isn't  all,"  he  interrupted,  hastily.  "I  don't 
say  but  what  if  father  had  given  us  his  blessing,  and 
come  down  with  another  six  thousand  a  year — we  could 
hardly  scrub  along  on  less — I'd  have  taken  it  and  been 
thankful.  But  now  that  he  hasn't — well,  I  can  see  that 

83 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

it's  all  for  the  best.  It's — it's  brought  me  out,  as  you 
might  say,  and  forced  me  to  a  decision." 

I  harked  back  to  the  sentence  in  which  he  had  broken 
in  on  me.  "If  it  was  all,  Hugh,  then  that  would  oblige 
me  to  make  up  my  mind  at  once.  I  couldn't  be  the 
means  of  compelling  you  to  break  with  your  family  and 
give  up  a  large  income." 

He  cried  out  impatiently,  "Alix,  what  the  dickens  is 
a  family  and  a  large  income  to  me  in  comparison  with 
you?" 

I  must  say  that  his  intensity  touched  me.  Tears  sprang 
into  my  eyes.  I  risked  Glady's  presence  to  say:  "Hugh, 
darling,  I  love  you.  I  can't  tell  you  what  your  generosity 
and  nobleness  mean  to  me.  I  hadn't  imagined  that  there 
was  a  man  like  you  in  the  world.  But  if  you  could  be 
in  my  place — " 

He  pushed  aside  his  coffee-cup  to  lean  with  both  arms 
on  the  table  and  look  me  fiercely  in  the  eyes.  "If  I 
can't  be  in  your  place,  Alix,  I've  seen  women  who  were, 
and  who  didn't  beat  so  terribly  about  the  bush.  Look 
at  the  way  Libby  Jaynes  married  Tracy  Allen.  She 
didn't  talk  about  his  family  or  his  giving  up  a  big  income. 
She  trusted  him." 

"And  I  trust  you;  only — "  I  broke  off,  to  get  at  him 
from  another  point  of  view.  "Do  you  know  Libby 
Jaynes  personally?" 

He  nodded. 

"Is  she — is  she  anything  like  me?" 

"No  one  is  like  you,"  he  exclaimed,  with  something 
that  was  almost  bitterness  in  the  tone.  "  Isn't  that  what 
I'm  trying  to  make  you  see?  You're  the  one  of  your 
kind  in  the  world.  You've  got  me  where  a  woman  has 
never  got  a  man  before.  I'd  give  up  everything — I'd 

84 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

starve — I'd  lick  dust — but  I'd  follow  you  to  the  ends  of 
the  earth,  and  I'd  cling  to  you  and  keep  you."  He,  too, 
risked  Glady's  presence.  "But  you're  so  damn  cool, 
Mix— " 

"Oh  no,  I'm  not,  Hugh,  darling,"  I  pleaded  on  my  own 
behalf.  "I  may  seem  like  that  on  the  outside,  because 
— oh,  because  I've  such  a  lot  to  think  of,  and  I  have  to 
think  for  us  two.  That's  why  I'm  asking  you  if  you  found 
Libby  Jaynes  like  me." 

He  looked  puzzled.  "She's — she's  decent."  he  said, 
as  if  not  knowing  what  else  to  say. 

"Yes,  of  course;  but  I  mean — does  she  strike  you  as 
having  had  my  kind  of  ways?  Or  my  kind  of  ante- 
cedents?" 

"Oh,  antecedents!    Why  talk  about  them?" 

"It's  what  you've  been  doing,  isn't  it,  for  the  past 
naif-hour?" 

"Oh,  mine,  yes;  because  I  want  you  to  see  that  I've 
got  a  big  asset  in  Cousin  Andrew  Brew.  I  know  he'll 
do  anything  for  me,  and  if  you'll  trust  me,  Alix — " 

"I  do  trust  you,  Hugh,  and  as  soon  as  you  have  any- 
thing like  what  would  make  you  independent,  and  justi- 
fied in  braving  your  family's  disapproval — " 

He  took  an  apologetic  tone.  "I  said  just  now  that 
we  couldn't  scrape  along  on  less  than  twelve  thousand 
a  year — " 

To  me  the  sum  seemed  ridiculously  enormous.  "Oh, 
I'm  sure  we  could." 

"Well,  that's  what  I've  been  thinking,"  he  said,  wist- 
fully. "That  figure  was  based  on  having  the  Brokenshire 
position  to  keep  up.  But  if  we  were  to  live  in  Boston, 
where  less  would  be  expected  of  us,  we  could  manage, 
I  should  think,  on  ten." 

85 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

Even  that  struck  me  as  too  much.  "On  five,  Hugh," 
I  declared,  with  confidence.  "I  know  I  could  manage 
on  five,  and  have  everything  we  needed." 

He  smiled  at  my  eagerness.  "  Oh,  well,  darling,  I  sha'n't' 
ask  you  to  come  down  to  that.  Ten  will  be  the  least." 

To  me  this  was  riches.  I  saw  the  vision  of  the  dainty 
dining-room  again,  and  the  nursery  with  the  bassinet; 
but  I  saw  Hugh  also  in  the  background,  a  little  shadowy, 
perhaps,  a  little  like  a  dream  as  an  artist  embodies  it  in 
a  picture,  and  yet  unmistakably  himself.  I  spoke  re- 
servedly, however,  far  more  reservedly  than  I  felt,  be- 
cause I  hadn't  yet  made  my  point  quite  clear  to  him. 

"  I'm  sure  we  could  be  comfortable  on  that.  When  you 
get  it—" 

I  hadn't  realized  that  this  was  the  detail  as  to  which 
he  was  most  sensitive. 

"There  you  go  again!  When  I  get  it!  Do  you  think 
I  sha'n't  get  it?" 

I  felt  my  eyebrows  going  up  in  surprise.  "Why,  no, 
Hugh,  dear.  I  suppose  you  know  what  you  can  get  and 
what  you  can't.  I  was  only  going  to  say  that  when  you 
do  get  it  I  shall  feel  as  if  you  were  free  to  give  yourself 
away,  and  that  I  shouldn't  have" — I  tried  to  smile  at 
him — "and  that  I  shouldn't  have  the  air  of — of  stealing 
you  from  your  family.  Can't  you  see,  dear?  You  keep 
quoting  Libby  Jaynes  at  me;  but  in  my  opinion  she  did 
steal  Tracy  Allen.  That  the  Aliens  have  made  the  best 
of  it  has  nothing  to  do  with  the  original  theft." 

"Theft  is  a  big  word." 

"Not  bigger  than  the  thing.  For  Libby  Jaynes  it  was 
possibly  all  right.  I'm  not  condemning  her.  But  it 
wouldn't  be  all  right  for  me." 

' '  Why  not  ?    What's  the  difference  ?" 

86 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

"I  can't  explain  it  to  you,  Hugh,  if  you  don't  see  it 
already.  It's  a  difference  of  tradition." 

"But  what's  difference  of  tradition  got  to  do  with 
love?  Since  you  admit  that  you  love  me,  and  I  certainly 
love  you — " 

"Yes,  I  admit  that  I  love  you,  but  love  is  not  the  only 
thing  in  the  world." 

"It's  the  biggest  thing  in  the  world." 

"Possibly;  and  yet  it  isn't  necessarily  the  surest 
guide  in  conduct.  There's  honor,  for  instance.  If  one 
had  to  take  love  without  honor,  or  honor  without  love, 
surely  one  would  choose  the  latter." 

"And  what  would  you  call  love  without  honor  in  this 
case?" 

I  reflected.  "I'd  call  it  doing  this  thing — getting  en- 
gaged or  married,  whichever  you  like — just  because  we 
have  the  physical  power  to  do  it,  and  making  the  family, 
especially  the  father,  to  whom  you're  indebted  for  every- 
thing you  are,  unhappy." 

"He  doesn't  mind  making  you  and  me  unhappy." 

"But  that's  his  responsibility.  We  haven't  got  to  do 
what's  right  for  him;  we've  only  got  to  do  what's  right 
for  ourselves."  I  fell  back  on  my  maxim,  "If  we  do 
right,  only  right  will  come  of  it,  whatever  the  wrong  it 
seems  to  threaten  now." 

"But  if  I  made  ten  thousand  a  year  of  my  own — " 

"I  should  consider  you  free.  I  should  feel  free  myself. 
I  should  feel  free  on  less  than  so  big  an  income." 

His  spirits  began  to  return. 

"I  don't  call  that  big.  We  should  have  to  pinch  like 
the  devil  to  keep  our  heads  above  water — no  motor — no 
butler—" 

"I've  never  had  either,"  I  smiled  at  him,  "nor  a  lot 

7  87 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

of  the  things  that  go  with  them.  Not  having  them 
might  be  privations  to  you — 

"Not  when  you  were  there,  little  Alix.  You  Can  bet 
your  sweet  life  on  that." 

We  laughed  together  over  the  expression,  and  as  Broke 
came  bounding  out  to  his  breakfast,  with  the  cry,  "Hello, 
Uncle  Hughie!"  we  lapsed  into  that  language  of  signs  and 
nods  and  cryptic  things  which  we  mutually  understood 
to  elude  his  sharp  young  wits.  By  this  method  of  double 
entendre  Hugh  gave  me  to  understand  his  intention  of 
going  to  Boston  by  an  afternoon  train.  He  thought  it 
possible  he  might  stay  there.  The  friendliness  of  Cousin 
Andrew  Brew  would  probably  detain  him  till  he  should 
go  to  work,  which  was  likely  to  be  in  a  day  or  two.  Even 
if  he  had  to  wait  a  week  he  would  prefer  to  do  so  at  Boston, 
where  he  had  not  only  ties  of  blood,  but  acquaintances 
and  interests  dating  back  to  his  Harvard  days,  which  had 
ended  three  years  before. 

In  the  mean  time,  my  position  might  prove  to  be  pre- 
carious. He  recognized  that,  making  it  an  excuse  for 
once  more  forcing  on  me  his  immediate  protection.  Mar- 
riage was  not  named  by  word  on  Broke's  account,  but 
I  understood  that  if  I  chose  we  could  be  married  within 
an  hour  or  two,  go  to  Boston  together,  and  begin  our 
common  life  without  further  delays. 

My  answer  to  this  being  what  it  had  been  before,  we 
discussed,  over  the  children's  heads,  the  chances  that 
could  befall  me  before  night.  Of  these  the  one  most 
threatening  was  that  I  might  be  sent  away  in  disgrace. 
If  sent  away  in  disgrace  I  should  have  to  go  on  the  in- 
stant. I  might  be  paid  for  a  month  or  two  ahead;  it 
was  probable  I  should  be.  It  was  J.  Howard's  policy  to 
deal  with  his  cashiered  employees  with  that  kind  of 

88 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

liberality,  so  as  to  put  himself  more  in  the  right.  But 
I  should  have  to  go  with  scarcely  the  time  to  pack  my 
boxes,  as  Hugh  had  gone  himself,  and  must  know  of  a 
place  where  I  could  take  shelter. 

I  didn't  know  of  any  such  refuge.  My  sojourn  under 
Mrs.  Rossiter's  roof  had  been  remarkably  free  from  con- 
tacts or  curiosities  of  my  own.  Hugh  knew  no  more 
than  I.  I  could,  therefore,  only  ask  his  consent  to  my 
consulting  Mr.  Strangways,  a  proposal  to  which  he 
agreed.  This  I  was  able  to  do  when  Larry  came  for 
Broke,  not  many  minutes  after  Hugh  had  taken  his 
departure. 

I  could  talk  to  him  the  more  freely  because  of  his 
knowledge  of  my  relation  to  Hugh.  With  the  fact  that 
I  was  in  love  with  another  man  kept  well  in  the  fore- 
ground between  us,  he  could  acquit  me  of  those  ulterior 
designs  on  himself  the  suspicion  of  which  is  so  disturbing 
to  a  woman's  friendship  with  a  man.  As  the  maid  was 
clearing  the  table,  as  Broke  had  to  go  to  his  lessons,  as 
Gladys  had  to  be  remanded  to  the  nursery  while  I  attended 
to  Mrs.  Rossiter's  telephone  calls  and  correspondence, 
our  talk  was  squeezed  in  during  the  seconds  in  which  we 
retreated  through  the  dining-room  into  the  main  part 
of  the  house. 

"The  long  and  short  of  it  is,"  Larry  Strangways 
summed  up,  when  I  had  confided  to  him  my  fears  of 
being  sent  about  my  business  as  soon  as  Hugh  had 
left  for  Boston — "the  long  and  the  short  of  it  is  that  I 
shall  have  to  look  you  up  another  job." 

It  is  almost  absurd  to  point  out  that  the  idea  was  new 
to  me.  In  going  to  Mrs.  Rossiter  I  had  never  thought 
of  starting  out  on  a  career  of  earning  a  living  profession- 
ally, as  you  might  say.  I  clung  to  the  conception  of 

89 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

myself  as  a  lady,  with  all  sorts  of  possibilities  in  the  way 
of  genteel  interventions  of  Providence  coming  in  between 
me  and  a  lifetime  of  work.  I  had  always  supposed  that 
if  I  left  Mrs.  Rossiter  I  should  go  back  to  my  uncle  and 
aunt  at  Halifax.  After  all,  if  Hugh  was  going  to  marry 
me,  it  would  be  no  more  than  correct  that  he  should  do 
it  from  under  their  wing.  Larry  Strangways's  suggestions 
of  another  job  threw  open  a  vista  of  places  I  should  fill 
in  the  future  little  short  of  appalling  to  a  woman  instinc- 
tively looking  for  a  man  to  come  and  support  her. 

I  shelved  these  considerations,  however,  to  say,  as 
casually  as  I  could:  "Why  should  you  do  it?  Why 
shouldn't  I  look  out  for  myself?" 

"Because  when  I've  gone  to  Stacy  Grainger  it  may 
be  right  in  my  line." 

"But  I'd  rather  you  didn't  have  me  on  your  mind." 

He  laughed — uneasily,  as  it  seemed  to  me.  "Perhaps 
it's  too  late  for  that." 

It  was  another  of  the  things  I  was  sorry  to  hear  him 
say.  I  could  only  reply,  still  on  the  forced  casual  note: 
"But  it's  not  too  late  for  me  to  look  after  my  own  affairs. 
What  I'm  chiefly  concerned  with  is  that  if  I  have  to 
leave  here — to-night,  let  us  say — I  sha'n't  in  the  least 
know  where  to  go." 

He  was  ready  for  me  in  the  event  of  this  contingency. 
I  suspected  that  he  had  already  considered  it.  He  had  a 
married  sister  in  New  York,  a  Mrs.  Applegate,  a  woman 
of  philanthropic  interests,  a  director  on  the  board  of  a 
Home  for  Working-Girls.  Again  I  shied  at  the  word. 
He  must  have  seen  that  I  did,  for  he  went  on,  with  a  smile 
in  which  I  detected  a  gleam  of  mockery: 

"You  are  a  working-girl,  aren't  you?" 

I  answered  with  the  kind  of  humility  I  can  only  de- 
go 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

scribe  as  spirited,  and  which  was  meant  to  take  the  wind 
out  of  his  sails: 

"I  suppose  so — as  long  as  I'm  working."  But  I  gave 
him  a  flying  upward  glance  as  I  asked  the  imprudent  ques- 
tion, "Is  that  how  you've  thought  of  me?" 

I  was  sorry  to  have  said  it  as  soon  as  the  words  were 
out.  I  didn't  want  to  know  what  he  thought  of  me.  It 
was  something  with  which  I  was  so  little  concerned  that 
I  colored  with  embarrassment  at  having  betrayed  so 
much  futile  curiosity.  Apparently  he  saw  that,  too, 
hastening  to  come  to  my  relief. 

"I've  thought  of  you,"  he  laughed,  when  we  had  reached 
the  main  stairway,  "as  a  clever  little  woman,  with  a 
special  set  of  aptitudes,  who  ought  to  be  earning  more 
money  than  she's  probably  getting  here;  and  when  I'm 
with  Stacy  Grainger — " 

Grateful  for  this  turning  of  the  current  into  the  busi- 
ness-like and  commonplace,  I  called  Gladys,  who  was 
lagging  in  the  dining-room  with  Broke,  and  went  on  my 
way  up-stairs. 

Mrs.  Rossiter  was  sitting  up  in  bed,  her  breakfast  be- 
fore her  on  a  light  wicker  tray  that  stood  on  legs.  It 
was  an  abstemious  breakfast,  carefully  selected  from  foods 
containing  most  nutrition  with  least  adipose  deposit. 
She  had  reached  the  age,  within  sight  of  the  thirties,  when 
her  figure  was  becoming  a  matter  for  consideration.  It 
was  almost  the  only  personal  detail  as  to  which  she  had 
as  yet  any  cause  for  anxiety.  Her  complexion  was  as 
bright  as  at  eighteen;  her  brown  hair,  which  now  hung 
in  a  loose,  heavy  coil  over  her  left  shoulder,  was  thick 
and  silky  and  long;  her  eyes  were  clear,  her  lips  ruby. 
I  always  noticed  that  she  waked  with  the  sleepy  softness 
of  a  flower  uncurling  to  the  sun.  In  the  great  walnut 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

bed,  of  which  the  curves  were  gilded  d  la  Louis  Quinze, 
she  made  me  think  of  that  Jeanne  B6cu  who  became 
Comtesse  du  Barry,  in  the  days  of  her  indolence  and 
luxury. 

Having  no  idea  as  to  how  she  would  receive  me,  I  was 
not  surprised  that  it  should  be  as  usual.  Since  I  had  en- 
tered her  employ  she  was  never  what  I  should  call  gra- 
cious, but  she  was  always  easy  and  familiar.  Sometimes 
she  was  petulant;  often  she  was  depressed;  but  beyond 
a  belief  that  she  inspired  tumultuous  passions  in  young 
men  there  was  no  pose  about  her  nor  any  haughtiness. 
I  was  not  afraid  of  her,  therefore;  I  was  only  uneasy  as 
to  the  degree  in  which  she  would  let  herself  be  used  against 
me  as  a  tool. 

"The  letters  are  here  on  the  bed,"  was  her  response  to 
my  greeting,  which  I  was  careful  to  make  in  the  form  in 
which  I  made  it  every  day. 

Taking  the  small  arm-chair  at  the  bedside,  I  sorted  the 
pile.  The  notes  she  had  not  glanced  at  for  herself  I  read 
aloud,  penciling  on  the  margins  the  data  for  the  answers. 
Some  I  replied  to  by  telephone,  which  stood  within  her 
reach  on  the  table  de  unit;  for  a  few  I  sat  down  at  the 
desk  and  wrote.  I  was  doing  the  latter,  and  had  just 
scribbled  the  words  "Mrs.  James  Worthington  Rossiter 
will  have  much  pleasure  in  accepting — "  when  she  said, 
in  a  slightly  querulous  tone: 

"I  should  think  you'd  do  something  about  Hugh — the 
way  he  goes  on." 

I  continued  to  write  as  I  asked,  "How  does  he  go  on?" 

"Like  an  idiot." 

"Has  he  been  doing  anything  new?" 

My  object  being  to  get  a  second  version  of  the  story 
Hugh  had  told  me,  I  succeeded.  Mrs.  Rossiter's  facts 

92 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

were  practically  the  same  as  her  brother's,  only  viewed 
from  a  different  angle.  As  she  presented  the  case  Hugh 
had  been  merely  preposterous,  dashing  his  head  against 
a  stone  wall,  with  nothing  he  could  gain  by  the  exercise. 

"The  idea  of  his  saying  he'll  not  go  to  the  Goldboroughs 
for  the  twelfth!  Of  course  he'll  go.  Since  father  means 
him  to  do  it,  he  will." 

I  was  addressing  an  envelope,  and  went  on  with  my 
task.  "But  I  thought  you  said  he'd  left  home?" 

"Oh,  well,  he'll  come  back." 

"But  suppose  he  doesn't?    Suppose  he  goes  to  work?" 

"Pff!    The  idea!    He  won't  keep  that  up  long." 

I  was  glad  to  be  sitting  with  my  back  to  her.  To  dis- 
guise the  quaver  in  my  voice  I  licked  the  flap  of  the  en- 
velope as  I  said: 

"But  he'll  have  to  if  he  means  to  support  a  wife." 

"Support  a  wife?  What  nonsense !  Father  means  him 
to  marry  Cissie  Boscobel,  as  I've  told  you  already — and 
he'll  fix  them  up  with  a  good  income." 

"But  apparently  Hugh  doesn't  see  things  that  way. 
He's  told  me—" 

"Oh,  he'd  tell  you  anything." 

"He's  told  me,"  I  presisted,  boldly,  "that  he — he  loves 
me;  and  he's  made  me  say  that — that  I  love  him." 

"And  that's  where  you're  so  foolish,  dear  Miss  Adare. 
You  let  him  take  you  in.  It  isn't  that  he's  not  sincere; 
I  don't  say  that  for  a  minute.  But  people  can't  go  about 
marrying  every  one  they  love,  now  can  they?  I  should 
think  you'd  have  seen  that — with  the  heaps  of  men  you 
had  there  at  Halifax — hardly  room  to  step  over  them." 

I  said,  slyly,  "I  never  saw  them  that  way." 

"Oh,  well,  I  did.  And  by  the  way,  I  wonder  what's 
become  of  that  Captain  Venables.  He  was  a  case!  He 

93 


THE   HIGH    HEART 

could  take  more   liberties  in   a   half-hour — don't    you 
think?" 

"He  never  took  any  liberties  with  me." 

"Then  that  must  have  been  your  fault.  Talk  about 
Mr.  Millinger!  Our  men  aren't  in  it  with  yours — not 
when  it  comes  to  the  real  thing." 

I  got  back  to  the  subject  in  which  I  was  most  inter- 
ested by  saying,  as  I  spread  another  note  before  me: 

"It  seems  to  be  the  real  thing  with  Hugh." 

"Oh,  I  dare  say  it  is.  It  was  the  real  thing  with  Jack. 
I  don't  say" — her  voice  took  on  a  tender  tremolo — "I 
don't  say  that  it  wasn't  the  real  thing  with  me.  But 
that  didn't  make  any  difference  to  father.  It  was  the 
real  thing  with  Pauline  Gray — when  she  was  down  there 
at  Baltimore ;  but  when  father  picked  her  out  for  Jack,  be- 
cause of  her  money  and  his  relations  with  old  Mr.  Gray — " 

I  couldn't  help  half  turning  round,  to  cry  out  in  tones 
of  which  I  was  unable  to  conceal  the  exasperation:  "But 
I  don't  see  how  you  can  all  let  yourselves  be  hooked  by 
the  nose  like  that — not  even  by  Mr.  Brokenshire !" 

Her  fatalistic  resignation  gave  me  a  sense  of  help- 
lessness. 

"Oh,  well,  you  will  before  father  has  done  with  you — if 
Hugh  goes  on  this  way.  Father's  only  playing  with  you 
so  far." 

"He  can't  touch  me,"  I  declared,  indignantly. 

"But  he  can  touch  Hugh.  That's  all  he  needs  to 
know,  as  far  as  you're  concerned."  She  asked,  in  an- 
other tone,  "What  are  you  answering  now?" 

I  told  her  it  was  the  invitation  to  Mrs.  Allen's  dance. 

"Then  tear  it  up  and  say  I  can't  go.  Say  I've  a  pre- 
vious engagement.  I'd  forgotten  that  they  had  that 
odious  Mrs.  Tracy  Allen  there." 

94 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

I  tore  up  the  sheet  slowly,  throwing  the  fragments  into 
the  waste-paper  basket. 

"Why  is  she  odious?" 

"Because  she  is."  She  dropped  for  a  second  into  the 
tone  of  the  early  friendly  days  in  Halifax.  "  My  dear,  she 
was  a  shop-girl — or  worse.  I've  forgotten  what  she  was. 
but  it  was  awful,  and  I  don't  mean  to  meet  her. " 

I  began  to  write  the  refusal. 

"She  goes  about  with  very  good  people,  doesn't  she?" 

"She  doesn't  go  about  with  me,  nor  with  some  others 
I  know,  I  can  tell  you  that.  If  she  did  it  would  queer  us." 

In  the  hope  of  drawing  out  some  such  repudiation  as 
that  which  I  felt  myself,  I  said,  dryly:  "Hugh  tells  me 
that  if  I  married  him  I  could  be  as  good  as  she  is — by  this 
time  next  year." 

I  got  nothing  for  my  pains. 

"That  wouldn't  help  you  much — not  among  the  people 
who  count." 

There  was  white  anger  underneath  my  meekness. 

"But  perhaps  I  could  get  along  with  the  people  who 
don't  count." 

"Yes,  you  might — but  Hugh  wouldn't." 

She  dismissed  the  subject  as  one  in  which  she  took 
only  a  secondary  interest  to  say  that  old  Mrs.  Billing 
was  coming  to  lunch,  and  that  Gladys  and  I  should  have 
to  take  that  repast  up-stairs.  She  was  never  direct  in 
her  denunciations  of  her  father's  second  marriage.  She 
brought  them  in  by  reference  and  innuendo,  like  a  pris- 
oner who  keeps  in  mind  the  fact  that  walls  have  ears. 
She  gave  me  to  understand,  however,  that  she  considered 
Mrs.  Billing  a  witch  out  of  "Macbeth"  or  a  wicked  old 
vulture — I  could  take  my  choice  of  comparisons — and  she 
hated  having  her  in  the  house.  She  wouldn't  do  it  only 

95 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

that,  in  ways  she  could  hardly  understand,  Mrs.  Billing 
was  the  power  behind  the  throne.  She  didn't  loathe  her 
stepmother,  she  said  in  effect,  so  much  as  she  loathed  her 
father's  attitude  toward  her.  I  have  never  forgotten  the 
words  she  used  in  this  connection,  dropping  her  voice  and 
glancing  about  her,  afraid  she  might  be  overheard.  "  It's 
as  if  God  himself  had  become  the  slave  of  some  silly  hu- 
man woman  just  because  she  had  a  pretty  face."  The 
sentence  not  only  betrayed  the  Brokenshire  attitude  of 
mind  toward  J.  Howard,  but  sent  a  chill  down  my  back. 

Having  finished  my  notes  and  addressed  them  I  rose  to 
return  to  Gladys;  but  there  was  still  an  unanswered  ques- 
tion in  my  mind.  I  asked  it,  standing  for  a  minute  be- 
side the  bed: 

"Then  you  don't  want  me  to  go  away?" 

She  arched  her  lovely  eyebrows.  "Go  away?  What 
for?" 

"Because  of  the  danger  of  my  marrying  Hugh." 

She  gave  a  little  laugh.  "Oh,  there's  no  danger  of 
that." 

"But  there  is,"  I  insisted.  "He's  asked  me  a  number 
of  times  to  go  with  him  to  the  nearest  clergyman,  and 
settle  the  question  once  for  all." 

"Only  you  don't  do  it.  There  you  are!  What  father 
doesn't  want  doesn't  happen;  and  what  he  does  want 
does.  That's  all  there  is  to  be  said." 


CHAPTER  VII 

AS  a  matter  of  fact,  that  was  all  Mrs.  Rossiter  and  I 
/v  did  say.  I  was  so  relieved  at  not  being  thrown  out 
of  house  and  home  on  the  instant  that  I  went  back  to 
Gladys  and  her  lisping  in  French  almost  cheerily.  You 
will  think  me  pusillanimous — and  I  was.  I  didn't  want 
to  go  to  Mrs.  Applegate  and  the  Home  for  Working- 
Girls.  As  far  as  food  and  shelter  were  concerned  I  liked 
them  well  enough  where  I  was.  I  liked  Mrs.  Rossiter 
too.  I  should  be  sorry  to  give  the  impression  that  she 
was  supercilious  or  unkind.  She  was  neither  the  one  nor 
the  other.  If  she  betrayed  little  sentiment  or  sympathy 
toward  me,  it  was  because  of  admitting  me  into  that 
feminine  freemasonry  in  which  the  emotional  is  not  called 
for.  I  might  suffer  while  she  remained  indifferent;  I 
might  be  killed  on  the  spot  while  she  wouldn't  shed  a 
tear;  and  yet  there  was  a  heartless,  good-natured,  live- 
and-let-live  detachment  about  her  which  left  me  with 
nothing  but  good-will. 

Then,  too,  I  knew  that  when  I  married  Hugh  she  would 
do  nothing  of  her  own  free  will  against  me.  She  would 
not  brave  her  father's  decree,  but  she  wouldn't  be  in- 
tolerant; she  might  think  Hugh  had  been  a  fool,  but 
when  she  could  do  so  surreptitiously  she  would  invite 
him  and  me  to  dinner. 

As  this  was  a  kind  of  recognition  in  advance,  I  could 
not  be  otherwise  than  grateful. 

97 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

It  made  waiting  for  Hugh  the  easier.  I  calculated  that 
if  he  entered  into  some  sort  of  partnership  with  his  cousin 
Andrew  Brew — I  didn't  in  the  least  know  what — we 
might  be  married  within  a  month  or  two.  At  furthest  it 
might  be  about  the  time  when  Mrs.  Rossiter  removed 
to  New  York,  which  would  make  it  October  or  November. 
I  could  then  slip  quietly  back  to  Halifax,  be  quietly  mar- 
ried, and  quietly  settle  with  Hugh  in  Boston.  In  the 
mean  time  I  was  glad  not  to  be  disturbed. 

I  spent,  therefore,  a  pleasant  morning  with  my  pupil, 
and  ate  a  pleasant  lunch,  watching  from  the  gable  win- 
dow of  the  school-room  the  great  people  assemble  in  the 
breakfast  loggia  in  honor  of  the  Marquise  de  Pompadour's 
mother.  I  am  not  sure  that  old  Madame  Poisson  ever 
went  to  court;  but  if  she  did  I  know  the  courtiers  must 
have  shown  her  just  such  deference  as  that  which  Mrs. 
Rossiter's  guests  exhibited  to  this  withered  old  lady  with 
the  hooked  nose  and  the  lorgnette. 

I  was  curious  about  the  whole  entertainment.  It  was 
not  the  only  one  of  the  kind  I  had  seen  from  a  distance 
since  coming  to  Mrs.  Rossiter,  and  I  couldn't  help  com- 
parisons with  the  same  kind  of  thing  as  done  in  the  ways 
with  which  I  was  familiar.  Here  it  was  less  a  luncheon 
than  it  was  an  exquisite  thing  on  the  stage,  rehearsed  to 
the  last  point.  In  England,  in  Canada,  luncheon  would 
be  something  of  a  friendly  haphazard,  primarily  for  the 
sake  of  getting  food,  secondly  as  a  means  to  a  scrambling, 
jolly  sort  of  social  intercourse,  and  hardly  at  all  a  cere- 
monial. Here  the  ceremonial  came  first.  Hostess  and 
guests  seemed  alike  to  be  taking  part  in  a  rite  of  seeing 
and  being  seen.  The  food,  which  was  probably  excellent, 
was  a  matter  of  slight  importance.  The  social  intercourse 
amounted  to  nothing,  since  they  all  knew  one  another  but 

98 


THEj  HIGH    HEART 

too  well,  and  had  no  urgent  vitality  of  interests  in  any 
case.  The  rite  was  the  thing.  Every  detail  was  prepared 
for  that.  Silver,  porcelain,  flowers,  doilies,  were  of  the 
most  expensive  and  the  most  correct.  The  guests  were 
dressed  to  perfection — a  little  too  well,  according  to  the 
English  standard,  but  not  too  well  for  a  function.  As  a 
function  it  was  beautiful,  an  occasion  of  privilege,  a  proof 
of  attainment.  It  was  the  best  thing  of  its  kind  America 
could  show.  Those  who  had  money  could  alone  present 
the  passport  that  would  give  the  right  of  admission. 

If  I  had  a  criticism  to  make,  it  was  that  the  guests 
were  too  much  alike.  They  were  all  business  men,  and 
the  wives  or  widows  of  business  men.  The  two  or  three 
who  did  nothing  but  live  on  inherited  incomes  were 
business  men  in  heart  and  in  blood.  Granted  that  in  the 
New  World  the  business  man  must  be  dominant,  it  was 
possible  to  have  too  much  of  him.  Having  too  much  of 
him  lowered  the  standard  of  interest,  narrowed  the  circle 
of  taste.  In  the  countries  I  knew  the  business  man 
might  be  present  at  such  a  festivity,  but  there  would 
be  something  to  give  him  color,  to  throw  him  into 
relief.  There  would  be  a  touch  of  the  creative  or  the 
intellectual,  of  the  spiritual  or  the  picturesque.  The 
company  wouldn't  be  all  of  a  gilded  drab.  There 
would  be  a  writer  or  a  painter  or  a  politician  or  an  actor 
or  a  soldier  or  a  priest.  There  would  be  something  that 
wasn't  money  before  it  was  anything  else.  Here  there 
was  nothing.  Birds  of  a  feather  were  flocking  together, 
and  they  were  all  parrots  or  parrakeets.  They  had 
plumage,  but  no  song.  They  drove  out  the  thrushes  and 
the  larks  and  the  wild  swans.  Their  shrill  screeches  and 
hoarse  shouts  came  up  in  a  not  wholly  pleasant  babel 
to  the  open  window  where  I  sat  looking  down  and  Gladj's 

99 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

hovered  and  hopped,  wondering  if  Thomas,  the  rosy- 
cheeked  footman,  would  remember  to  bring  us  some  of 
the  left-over  ice-cream. 

I  thought  it  was  a  pity.  With  elements  as  good  as 
could  be  found  anywhere  to  form  a  Society — that  fusion 
of  all  varieties  of  achievement  to  which  alone  the  word 
written  with  a  capital  can  be  applied — there  was  no  one 
to  form  it.  It  was  a  woman's  business;  and  for  the  rdle 
of  hostess  in  the  big  sense  the  American  woman,  as  far 
as  I  could  judge,  had  little  or  no  aptitude.  She  was  too 
timid,  too  distrustful  of  herself,  too  much  afraid  of  doing 
the  wrong  thing  or  of  knowing  the  wrong  people.  She 
was  so  little  sure  of  her  standing  that,  as  Mrs.  Rossiter 
expressed  it,  she  could  be  "queered"  by  shaking  hands 
with  Libby  Jaynes.  She  lacked  authority.  She  could 
stand  out  in  a  throng  by  her  dress  or  her  grace,  but  she 
couldn't  lead  or  combine  or  co-ordinate.  She  could  lend 
a  charming  hand  where  some  one  else  was  the  Lady  Hol- 
land or  the  Madame  de  Stael,  but  she  couldn't  take  the 
seemingly  heterogeneous  types  represented  by  the  writer, 
the  painter,  the  politician,  the  actor,  the  soldier,  the 
priest,  and  the  business  man  and  weld  them  into  the  de- 
lightful, promiscuous,  entertaining  whole  to  be  found,  in 
its  greater  or  lesser  degree,  according  to  size  or  importance 
of  place,  almost  anywhere  within  the  borders  of  the  Brit- 
ish Empire.  I  came  to  the  conclusion  that  this  was  why 
there  were  few  "great  houses"  in  America  and  fewer 
women  of  importance. 

It  was  why,  too,  the  guests  were  subordinated  to  the 
ceremonial.  It  couldn't  be  any  other  way.  With  flint 
and  steel  you  can  get  a  spark;  but  where  you  have  noth- 
ing but  flint  or  nothing  but  steel,  friction  produces  no 
light.  The  American  hostess,  in  so  far  as  she  exists,  rare- 

100 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

ly  hopes  for  anything  from  the  clash  of  minds,  and  there- 
fore centers  her  attention  on  her  doilies.  It  must  be  ad- 
mitted that  she  has  the  most  tasteful  doilies  in  the  world. 
There  is  a  pathos  in  the  way  in  which,  for  want  of  the 
courage  to  get  interesting  human  specimens  together, 
she  spends  her  strength  on  the  details  of  her  rite.  It  is 
like  the  instinct  of  women  who  in  default  of  babies  lavish 
then-  passion  on  little  dogs.  One  can  say  that  it  is  faute 
de  mieuoc.  Faute  de  mieux  was,  I  am  sure,  the  reason 
why  Ethel  Rossiter  took  her  table  appointments  with  what 
seemed  to  me  such  extraordinary  seriousness.  When  all  was 
said  and  done  it  was  the  only  real  thing  to  care  about. 
I  repeat  that  I  thought  it  was  a  pity.  I  had  dreams, 
as  I  looked  down,  of  what  I  could  do  with  the  same  use 
of  money,  the  same  position  of  command.  I  had  dreams 
that  the  Brokenshires  accepted  me,  that  Hugh  came  into 
the  means  that  would  be  his  in  the  ordinary  course.  I 
saw  myself  standing  at  the  head  of  the  stairway  of  a  fine 
big  house  in  Washington  or  New  York.  People  were 
streaming  upward,  and  I  was  shaking  hands  with  a  de- 
lightful, smiling  dtsinvolture.  I  saw  men  and  women  of 
all  the  ranks  and  orders  of  conspicuous  accomplishment, 
each  contributing  a  gift — some  nothing  but  beauty,  some 
nothing  but  wit,  some  nothing  but  money,  some  nothing 
but  position,  some  nothing  but  fame,  some  nothing  but 
national  importance.  The  Brokenshire  clan  was  there, 
and  the  Billings  and  the  Grays  and  the  Burkes ;  but  states- 
men and  diplomatists,  too,  were  there,  and  those  leaders 
in  the  world  of  the  pen  and  the  brush  and  the  buskin  of 
whom,  oddly  enough,  I  saw  Larry  Strangways,  with  his 
eternal  defensive  smile,  emerging  from  the  crowd  as  chief. 
I  was  wearing  diamonds,  black  velvet,  and  a  train,  wav- 
ing in  aay  disengaged  hand  a  spangled  fan. 

-104 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

From  these  visions  I  was  roused  by  Gladys,  who  came 
prancing  from  the  stair-head. 

"  Via,  Mademoiselle!     Via  Thomas  et  le  tee-cream!" 

Having  consumed  this  dainty,  we  watched  the  com- 
pany wander  about  the  terraces  and  lawns  and  finally 
drift  away.  I  was  getting  Gladys  ready  for  her  walk 
when  Thomas,  with  a  pitying  expression  on  his  boyish 
face,  came  back  to  say  that  Mr.  Brokenshire  would  like 
to  speak  with  me  down-stairs. 

I  was  never  so  near  fainting  in  my  life.  I  had  barely 
the  strength  to  gasp,  "Very  well,  Thomas,  I'll  come,"  and 
to  send  Gladys  to  her  nurse.  Thomas  watched  me  with 
his  good,  kind,  sympathetic  eyes.  Like  the  other  ser- 
vants, he  must  have  known  something  of  my  secret  and 
was  on  my  side.  I  called  him  the  bonton  de  rose,  partly 
because  his  clean,  pink  cheeks  suggested  a  Killarney 
breaking  into  flower,  and  partly  because  in  his  waiting 
on  Gladys  and  me  he  had  the  yearning,  care-taking  air 
of  a  fatherly  little  boy.  Just  now  he  could  only  march 
down  the  passage  ahead  of  me,  throw  open  the  door  of 
my  bedroom  as  if  he  was  lord  chamberlain  to  a  queen, 
End  give  me  a  look  which  seemed  to  say,  "  If  I  can  be  your 
liege  knight  against  this  giant,  pray,  dear  lady,  command 
me."  I  threw  him  my  thanks  in  a  trumped-up  smile, 
vyhich  he  returned  with  such  sweet  encouragement  as  to 
nearly  unman  me. 

I  stayed  in  my  room  only  long  enough  to  be  sure  that 
I  was  neat,  smoothing  my  hair  and  picking  one  or  two 
threads  from  my  white-linen  suit.  The  suit  had  scarlet 
cuffs  and  a  scarlet  belt,  and  as  there  was  a  scarlet  flush 
beneath  my  summer  tan,  like  the  color  under  the  glaze 
of  a  Chinese  jar,  I  could  see  for  myself  that  my  appear- 
ance was  not  ineffective. 

1 02 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

The  bouton  de  rose  was  in  waiting  at  the  foot  of  the 
stairs  as  I  came  down.  Through  the  hall  and  the  dining- 
room  he  ushered  me  royally;  but  as  I  came  out  on  the 
breakfast  loggia  my  royalty  stopped  with  what  I  can  only 
describe  as  a  bump. 

The  guests  had  gone,  but  the  family  remained.  The 
last  phase  of  the  details  of  the  rite  were  also  on  the  table. 
All  the  doilies  were  there,  and  the  magnificent  lace  center- 
piece which  Mrs.  Rossiter  had  at  various  times  called  on 
me  to  admire.  The  old  Spode  dessert  service  was  the 
more  dimly,  anciently  brilliant  because  of  the  old  polished 
oak,  and  so  were  the  glasses  and  finger-bowls  picked  out 
in  gold." 

Mr.  Brokenshire,  whom  I  had  seen  from  my  window 
strolling  with  some  ladies  on  the  lawn,  had  returned  to 
the  foot  of  the  table,  opposite  to  the  door  by  which  I 
came  out,  where  he  now  sat  in  a  careless,  sidewise  attitude, 
fingering  his  cigar.  Old  Mrs.  Billing,  who  was  beside  him 
on  his  right,  put  up  her  lorgnette  immediately  I  appeared 
in  the  entrance.  Mrs.  Rossiter  had  dropped  into  a  chance 
chair  half-way  down  the  table  on  the  left;  but  Mrs. 
Brokenshire,  oddly  enough,  was  in  that  same  seat  in  the 
far  corner  to  which  she  had  retreated  on  the  occasion 
of  my  summoning  ten  days  before.  I  wondered  whether 
this  was  by  intention  or  by  chance,  though  I  was  pres- 
ently to  know. 

Terrified  though  I  was,  I  felt  salvation  to  lie  in  keeping 
a  certain  dignity.  I  made,  therefore,  something  between 
a  bow  and  a  courtesy,  first  to  Mr.  Brokenshire,  then  to 
Mrs.  Billing,  then  to  Mrs.  Rossiter,  and  lastly  to  Mrs. 
Brokenshire,  to  whom  I  raised  my  eyes  and  looked  all 
the  way  diagonally  across  the  loggia.  I  took  my  time 
in  making  these  four  distinct  salutations,  though  in  re- 
8  103 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

sponse  I  was  only  stared  at.  After  that  there  was  a 
space  of  some  seconds  in  which  I  merely  stood,  in  my  pose 
of  Ecce  Femina! 

"Sit  down!" 

The  command  came,  of  course,  from  J.  Howard.  The 
chair  to  which  I  had  once  before  been  banished  being  still 
in  its  corner,  I  slipped  into  it. 

"I  wished  to  speak  to  you,  Miss — a — Miss — " 

He  glanced  helplessly  toward  his  daughter,  who  sup- 
plied the  name. 

"Ah  yes.  I  wished  to  speak  to  you,  Miss  Adare,  be- 
cause my  son  has  been  acting  very  foolishly." 

I  made  my  tone  as  meek  as  I  could,  scarcely  daring  to 
lift  my  eyes  from  the  floor.  "Wouldn't  it  be  well,  sir, 
to  talk  to  him  about  that?" 

Mrs.  Billing's  lorgnette  came  down.  She  glanced  tow- 
ard her  son-in-law  as  though  finding  the  point  well  taken. 

He  went  on  imperturbably.  "I've  said  all  I  mean 
to  say  to  him.  My  present  appeal  is  to  you." 

"Oh,  then  this  is  an — appeal?" 

He  seemed  to  hesitate,  to  reflect.  "If  you  choose  to 
take  it  so,"  he  admitted,  stiffly. 

"It  surely  isn't  as  I  choose  to  take  it,  sir;  it's  as  you 
choose  to  mean." 

"Don't  bandy  words." 

"But  I  must  use  words,  sir.  I  only  want  to  be  sure 
that  you're  making  an  appeal  to  me,  and  not  giving  me 
commands." 

He  spoke  sharply.  "I  wish  you  to  understand  that 
you're  inducing  a  young  man  to  act  in  a  way  he  is  going 
to  find  contrary  to  his  interests." 

I  could  barely  nerve  myself  to  look  up  at  him.  "If 
by  the  'young  man'  you  mean  Mr.  Hugh  Brobenshire, 

104 


then  I'm  inducing  him  to  do  nothing  whatever;  unless," 
I  added,  ''you  call  it  an  inducement  that  I — I" — I  was 
bound  to  force  the  word  out — "unless  you  call  it  an 
inducement  that  I  love  him." 

' '  But  that's  it, "  Mrs.  Rossiter  broke  in.  ' '  That's  what 
my  father  means.  If  you'd  stop  caring  anything  about 
him  you  wouldn't  give  him  encouragement." 

I  looked  at  her  with  a  dim,  apologetic  smile.  It  was  a 
time,  I  felt,  to  speak  not  only  with  more  courage,  but  with 
more  sentiment  than  I  was  accustomed  to  use  in  ex- 
pressing myself. 

"I'm  afraid  I  can't  give  my  heart,  and  take  it  back, 
like  that." 

"I  can,"  she  returned,  readily.  She  spoke  as  if  it  was 
a  matter  of  cracking  her  knuckles  or  wagging  her  ears. 
"If  I  don't  want  to  like  a  person  I  don't  do  it.  It's 
training  and  self-command." 

"You're  fortunate,"  I  said,  quietly.  Why  I  should 
have  glanced  again  at  Mrs.  Brokenshire  I  hardly  know; 
but  I  did  so,  as  I  added:  "I've  had  no  training  of  that 
kind — and  I  doubt  if  many  women  have." 

Mrs.  Brokenshire,  who  was  gazing  at  me  with  the  same 
kind  of  fascinated  stare  as  on  the  former  occasion,  faintly, 
but  quite  perceptibly,  inclined  her  head.  In  this  move- 
ment I  was  sure  I  had  the  key  to  the  mystery  that  seemed 
to  surround  her. 

"All  this,"  J.  Howard  declared,  magisterially,  "is  be- 
side the  point.  If  you've  told  my  son  that  you'd  marry 
him—" 

"I  haven't." 

"Or  even  given  him  to  understand  that  you  would — ' 

"I've  only  given  him  to  understand  that  I'd  marry 
him — on  conditions." 

105 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

"Indeed?  And  would  it  be  discreet  on  my  part  to 
inquire  the  terms  you've  been  kind  enough  to  lay 
down?" 

I  pulled  myself  together  and  spoke  firmly.  "The  first 
is  that  I'll  marry  him — if  his  family  come  to  me  and  ex- 
press a  wish  to  have  me  as  a  sister  and  a  daughter." 

Old  Mrs.  Billing  emitted  the  queer,  cracked  cackle  of 
a  hen  when  it  crows,  but  she  put  up  her  lorgnette  and 
examined  me  more  closely.  Ethel  Rossiter  gasped  audi- 
bly, moving  her  chair  a  little  farther  round  in  my  direction. 
Mrs.  Brokenshire  stared  with  concentrated  intensity,  but 
somehow,  I  didn't  know  why,  I  felt  that  she  was  backing 
me  up. 

The  great  man  contented  himself  with  saying,  "  Oh,  you 
will!" 

I  ignored  the  tone  to  speak  with  a  decision  and  a  spirit 
I  was  far  from  feeling. 

"Yes,  sir,  I  will.  I  shall  not  steal  him  from  you — 
not  so  long  as  he's  dependent." 

"That's  very  kind.     And  may  I  ask — " 

"You  haven't  let  me  tell  you  my  other  condition." 

"True.     Go  on." 

I  panted  the  words  out  as  best  I  could.  "I've  told 
Htm  I'd  marry  him — if  he  rendered  himself  independent; 
if  he  earned  his  own  money  and  became  a  man." 

"Ah!  And  you  expect  one  or  the  other  of  these 
miracles  to  take  place?" 

"I  expect  both." 

Though  the  words  uttered  themselves,  without  calcu- 
lation or  expectation  on  my  part,  they  gave  me  so  much 
of  the  courage  of  conviction  that  I  held  up  my  head. 
To  my  surprise  Mrs.  Billing  didn't  crow  again  or  so  much 
as  laugh.  She  only  gasped  out  that  long  "Ha-a!"  which 

1 06 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

proclaims  the  sporting  interest,  of  which  both  Hugh  and 
Ethel  Rossiter  had  told  me  in  the  morning. 

Mr.  Brokenshire  seemed  to  brace  himself,  leaning  for- 
ward, with  his  elbow  on  the  table  and  his  cigar  between 
the  fingers  of  his  raised  right  hand.  His  eyes  were  bent 
on  me — fine  eyes  they  were! — as  if  in  kindly  amuse- 
ment. 

"My  good  girl,"  he  said,  in  his  most  pitying  voice,  "I 
wish  I  could  tell  you  how  sorry  for  you  I  am.  Neither 
of  these  dreams  can  possibly  come  true — " 

My  blood  being  up,  I  interrupted  with  some  force. 
"Then  in  that  case,  Mr.  Brokenshire,  you  can  be  quite 
easy  in  your  mind,  for  I  should  never  marry  your  son." 
Having  made  this  statement,  I  followed  it  up  by  saying, 
"Since  that  is  understood,  I  presume  there's  no  object 
in  my  staying  any  longer."  I  was  half  rising  when  his 
hand  went  up. 

"Wait.  We'll  tell  you  when  to  go.  You  haven't  yet 
got  my  point.  Perhaps  I  haven't  made  it  clear.  I'm 
not  interested  in  your  hopes — " 

"No,  sir;   of  course  not;   nor  I  in  yours." 

"I  haven't  inquired  as  to  that — but  we'll  let  it  pass. 
We're  both  apparently  interested  in  my  son." 

I  gave  a  little  bow  of  assent. 

"  I  said  I  wished  to  make  an  appeal  to  you." 

I  made  another  little  bow  of  assent. 

"It's  on  his  behalf.  You  could  do  him  a  great  kind- 
ness. You  could  make  him  understand — I  gather  that 
he's  under  your  influence  to  some  degree;  you're  a  clever 
girl,  I  can  see  that — but  you  could  make  him  understand 
lkihat  in  fancying  he'll  marry  you  he's  starting  out  on  a 
ask  in  which  there's  no  hope  whatever." 

"But  there  is." 

107 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

"Pardon  me,  there  isn't.  By  your  own  showing  there 
isn't.  You've  laid  down  conditions  that  will  never  be 
fulfilled." 

"What  makes  you  say  that?" 

"My  knowledge  of  the  world." 

"Oh,  but  would  you  call  that  knowledge  of  the  world?" 
I  was  swept  along  by  the  force  of  an  inner  indignation 
which  had  become  reckless.  "Knowledge  of  the  world," 
I  hurried  on,  "implies  knowledge  of  the  human  heart,  and 
you've  none  of  that  at  all."  I  could  see  him  flush. 

"My  good  girl,  we're  here  to  speak  of  you,  not  of 
me—" 

"Surely  we're  here  to  speak  of  us  both,  since  at  any 
minute  I  choose  I  can  marry  your  son.  If  I  don't 
marry  him  it's  because  I  don't  choose;  but  when  I 
do  choose — " 

Again  the  hand  went  up.  "Yes,  of  course;  but  that's 
not  what  we  want  specially  to  hear.  Let  us  assume,  as 
you  say,  that  you  can  marry  my  son  at  any  time  you 
choose.  You  don't  choose,  for  the  reason  that  you're 
astute  enough  to  see  that  your  last  state  would  be  worse 
than  the  first.  To  enter  a  family  that  would  disown  you 
at  once — " 

I  kept  down  my  tone,  though  I  couldn't  master  my 
excitement.  "That's  not  my  reason.  If  I  don't  marry 
him  it's  precisely  because  I  have  the  power.  There  are 
people — cowards  they  are  at  heart,  as  a  rule — who  be- 
cause they  have  the  power  use  it  to  be  insolent,  especially 
to  those  who  are  weaker.  I'm  not  one  of  those.  There's 
a  noblesse  oblige  that  compels  one  in  spite  of  everything. 
In  dealing  with  an  elderly  man,  who  I  suppose  loves  his 
son,  and  with  a  lady  who's  been  so  kind  to  me  as  Mrs. 
Rossiter — " 

1 08 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

"You've  been  hired,  and  you're  paid.  There's  no 
special  call  for  gratitude." 

"Gratitude  is  in  the  person  who  feels  it;  but  that  isn't 
what  I  specially  want  to  say." 

"What  you  specially  want  to  say  apparently  is — " 

"That  I'm  not  afraid  of  you,  sir;  I'm  not  afraid  of 
your  family  or  your  money  or  your  position  or  anything 
or  any  one  you  can  control.  If  I  don't  marry  Hugh,  it's 
for  the  reason  that  I've  given,  and  for  no  other.  As  long 
as  he's  dependent  on  your  money  I  shall  not  marry  him 
till  you  come  and  beg  me  to  do  it — and  that  I  shall  expect 
of  you." 

He  smiled  tolerantly.  "That  is,  till  you've  brought  us 
to  our  knees." 

I  could  barely  pipe,  but  I  stood  to  my  guns.  "If  you 
like  the  expression,  sir — yes.  I  shall  not  marry  Hugh — 
so  long  as  you  support  him — till  I've  brought  you  to  your 
knees." 

If  I  expected  the  heavens  to  fall  at  this  I  was  disap- 
pointed. All  J.  Howard  did  was  to  lean  on  his  arm  tow- 
ard Mrs.  Billing  and  talk  to  her  privately.  Mrs.  Rossiter 
got  up  and  went  to  her  father,  entering  also  into  a  whis- 
pered colloquy.  Once  or  twice  he  glanced  backward  to 
his  wife,  but  she  was  now  gazing  sidewise  in  the  direction 
of  the  house  and  over  the  lines  of  flowers  that  edged  the 
terraces. 

When  Mrs.  Rossiter  had  gone  back  to  her  seat,  and 
J.  Howard  had  raised  himself  from  his  conversation  with 
Mrs.  Billing,  he  began  again  to  address  me  tranquilly: 

"I  hoped  you  might  have  sympathized  with  my  hopes 
for  Hugh,  and  have  helped  to  convince  him  how  useless 
his  plans  for  a  marriage  between  him  and  you  must  be." 

I  answered  with  decision:   "No;  I  can't  do  that." 

iog 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

"I  should  have  appreciated  it — " 

"That  I  can  quite  understand." 

"And  some  day  have  shown  you  that  I'm  acting  for 
your  good." 

"Oh,  sir,"  I  cried,  "whatever  else  you  do,  you'll  let 
my  good  be  my  own  affair,  will  you  not?" 

I  thought  I  heard  Mrs.  Billing  say,  "Brava!"  At  any 
rate,  she  tapped  her  fingers  together  as  if  in  applause.  I 
began  to  feel  in  a  more  lenient  spirit  toward  her. 

"I'm  quite  willing  to  do  that,"  my  opponent  said,  in  a 
moderate,  long-suffering  tone,  "now  that  I  see  that  you 
refuse  to  take  Hugh's  good  into  consideration.  So  long 
as  you  encourage  him  in  his  present  madness — " 

"I'm  not  doing  that." 

He  took  no  notice  of  the  interruption.  " — I'm  obliged 
to  regard  him  as  nothing  to  me." 

"That  must  be  between  you  and  your  son." 

"It  is.  I'm  only  asking  you  to  note  that  you — ruin 
him." 

"No,  no,"  I  began  to  protest,  but  he  silenced  me  with 
a  movement  of  his  hand. 

"I'm  not  a  hard  man  naturally,"  he  went  on,  in  his 
tranquil^voice,  "but  I  have  to  be  obeyed." 

"Why?"  I  demanded.  "Why  should  you  be  obeyed 
more  than  any  one  else?" 

"Because  I  mean  to  be.     That  must  be  enough — " 

"But  it  isn't,"  I  insisted.  "I've  no  intention  of  obey- 
ing you — " 

He  broke  in  with  some  haste:  "Oh,  there's  no  question 
of  you,  my  dear  young  lady.  I've  nothing  to  do  with  you. 
I'm  speaking  of  my  son.  He  must  obey  me,  or  take  the 
consequences.  And  the  consequences  will  last  as  long  as 
he  lives.  I'm  not  one  to  speak  rashly,  or  to  speak  twice. 

no 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

So  that's  what  I'm  putting  to  you.  Do  you  think — do 
you  honestly  think — that  you're  improving  your  position 
by  ruining  a  man  who  sooner  or  later — sooner  rather  than 
later — will  lay  his  ruin  at  your  door  and  loathe  you? 
Come  now!  You're  a  clever  girl.  The  case  is  by  no 
means  beyond  you.  Think,  and  think  straight." 

"I  am  thinking,  sir.  I'm  thinking  so  straight  that  I 
see  right  through  you.  My  father  used  to  say — " 

"No  reminiscence,  please." 

"Very  well,  then;  we'll  let  the  reminiscence  go.  But 
you're  thinking  of  committing  a  crime,  a  crime  against 
Hugh,  a  crime  against  yourself,  a  crime  against  love, 
every  kind  of  love — and  that's  the  worst  crime  of  all — 
and  you  haven't  the  moral  courage  to  shoulder  the  guilt 
yourself;  you're  trying  to  shuffle  it  off  on  me." 

"  My  good  woman — " 

But  nothing  could  silence  me  now.  I  leaned  forward, 
with  hands  clasped  in  my  lap,  and  merely  looked  at  him. 
My  voice  was  low,  but  I  spoke  rapidly: 

"You're  talking  to  bewilder  me,  to  throw  dust  in  my 
eyes,  to  snare  me  into  taking  the  blame  for  what  you're 
doing  of  your  own  free  act.  It's  a  kind  of  reasoning  which 
some  girls  would  be  caught  by,  but  I'm  not  one  of  them. 
If  Hugh  is  ruined  in  the  sense  you  mean,  it's  his  father 
who  will  ruin  him — but  even  that  is  not  the  worst.  What's 
worst,  what's  dastardly,  what's  not  merely  unworthy  of 
a  man  like  you  but  unworthy  of  any  man — of  anything 
that  calls  itself  a  male — is  that  you,  with  all  your  re- 
sources of  every  kind,  should  try  to  foist  your  responsi- 
bilities off  on  a  woman  who  has  no  resources  whatever. 
That  I  shouldn't  have  believed  of  any  of  your  sex — if  it 
hadn't  happened  to  myself." 

But  my  eloquence  left  him  as  unmoved  as  before.  He 

in 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

whispered  with  Mrs.  Billing.  The  old  lady  was  animated, 
making  beats  and  lunges  with  her  lorgnette. 

"So  that  what  it  comes  to,"  he  said  to  me  at  last,  lifting 
himself  up  and  speaking  in  a  tired  voice,  "is  that  you  really 
mean  to  pit  yourself  against  me." 

"  No,  sir;  but  that  you  mean  to  pit  yourself  against  me." 
Something  compelled  me  to  add :  "And  I  can  tell  you  now 
that  you'll  be  beaten  in  the  end." 

Perhaps  he  didn't  hear  me,  for  he  rose  and,  stooping,  car^ 
ried  on  his  discussion  with  Mrs.  Billing.  There  was  a  long 
period  in  which  no  one  paid  any  further  attention  to  my 
presence;  in  fact,  no  one  paid  any  attention  to  me  any 
more.  To  my  last  words  I  expected  some  retort,  but  none 
came.  Ethel  Rossiter  joined  her  father  at  the  end  of  the 
table,  and  when  Mrs.  Billing  also  rose  the  conversation 
went  on  h  trois.  Mrs.  Brokenshire  alone  remained  seated 
and  aloof. 

But  the  moment  came  when  her  husband  turned  toward 
her.  Not  having  been  dismissed,!  merely  stood  and  looked 
on.  What  I  saw  then  passed  quickly,  so  quickly  that  it 
took  a  minute  of  reflection  before  I  could  put  two  and  two 
together. 

Having  taken  one  step  toward  his  wife,  Howard  Broken- 
shire  stood  still,  abruptly,  putting  his  hand  suddenly  to 
the  left  side  of  his  face.  His  wife,  too,  put  up  her  hand, 
but  palm  outward  and  as  if  to  wave  him  back.  At  the 
same  time  she  averted  her  face — and  I  knew  it  was  his  eye. 

It  was  over  before  either  of  the  other  two  women  per- 
ceived anything.  Presently,  all  four  were  out  on  the  grass, 
strolling  along  in  a  little  chattering  group  together.  My 
dismissal  having  come  automatically,  as  you  might  say, 
I  was  free  to  go. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

AN  hour  later  I  had  what  up  to  then  I  must  call  the 
greatest  surprise  of  my  life. 

I  was  crying  by  myself  on  the  shore,  in  that  secluded 
corner  among  the  rocks  where  Hugh  had  first  told  me  that 
he  loved  me.  As  a  rule,  I  don't  cry  easily.  I  did  it  now 
chiefly  from  being  overwrought.  I  was  desolate.  I 
missed  Hugh.  The  few  days  or  few  weeks  that  must  pass 
before  I  could  see  him  again  stretched  before  me  like  a  cen- 
tury. All  whom  I  could  call  my  own  were  so  far  away. 
Even  had  they  been  near,  they  would  probably,  with  the 
individualism  of  our  race,  have  left  me  to  shift  for  myself. 
Louise  and  Victoria  had  always  given  me  to  understand 
that,  though  they  didn't  mind  lending  me  an  occasional 
sisterly  hand,  my  life  was  my  own  affair.  It  would  have 
been  a  relief  to  talk  the  whole  thing  out  philosophically 
with  Larry  Strangways.  As  I  came  from  the  house  I  tried, 
for  the  first  time  since  knowing  him,  to  throw  myself  in  his 
path;  but,  as  usual  when  one  needs  a  friend,  he  was  no- 
where to  be  seen. 

I  could,  therefore,  only  scramble  down  to  my  favorite 
corner  among  the  rocks.  Not  that  it  was  really  a  scram- 
ble. As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  path  was  easy  if  you  knew 
where  to  find  it;  but  it  was  hidden  from  the  ordinary 
passer  on  the  Cliff  Walk,  first  by  a  boulder,  round  which 
you  had  to  slip,  and  then  by  a  tangle  of  wild  rosebines; 

"3 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

wild  raspberries,  and  Queen  Anne's  lace.  It  was  some- 
thing like  a  secret  door,  known  only  to  the  Rossiter  house- 
hold, their  servants,  and  their  friends.  Once  you  had 
passed  it  you  had  a  measure  of  the  public  privacy  you  get 
in  a  box  at  the  theater  or  the  opera.  You  had  space  and 
ease  and  a  wide  outlook,  with  no  fear  of  intrusion. 

I  cannot  say  that  I  was  unhappy.  I  was  rather  in  that 
state  of  mind  which  the  American  people,  with  its  gift 
for  the  happy,  unexpected  word,  have  long  spoken  of  as 
"mad."  I  was  certainly  mad.  I  was  mad  with  J.  How- 
ard Brokenshire  first  of  all ;  I  was  mad  with  his  family  for 
having  got  up  and  left  me  without  so  much  as  a  nod ;  I  was 
mad  with  Hugh  for  having  made  me  fall  in  love  with  him; 
I  was  mad  with  Larry  Strangways  for  not  having  been  on 
the  spot;  and  I  was  most  of  all  mad  with  myself.  I  had 
been  boastful  and  bumptious ;  I  had  been  disrespectful  and 
absurd.  It  was  foolish  to  make  worse  enemies  than  I  had 
already.  Mrs.  Rossiter  wouldn't  keep  me  now.  There 
would  be  no  escape  from  Mrs.  Applegate  and  the  Home  for 
Working-Girls. 

The  still  summer  beauty  of  the  afternoon  added  to  my 
wretchedness.  All  round  and  before  me  there  was  luxury 
and  joyousness  and  sport.  The  very  sea  was  in  a  playful 
mood,  lapping  at  my  feet  like  a  tamed,  affectionate  levia- 
than, and  curling  round  the  ledges  in  the  offing  with  deli- 
cate lace-like  spouts  of  spume.  Sea-gulls  swooped  and 
hovered  with  hoarse  cries  and  a  lovely  effect  of  silvery 
wings.  Here  and  there  was  a  sail  on  the  blue,  or  the  smoke 
of  a  steamer  or  a  war-ship.  Eastons  Point,  some  two  or 
three  miles  away,  was  a  long,  burnished  line  of  ripening 
wheat.  To  right  and  to  left  of  me  were  broken  crags,  red- 
yellow,  red-brown,  red-green,  where  lovers  and  happy 
groups  could  perch  or  nestle  carelessly,  thrusting  trouble 

114. 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

for  the  moment  to  a  distance.  I  had  to  bring  my  trouble 
with  me.  If  it  had  not  been  for  trouble  I  shouldn't  have 
been  there.  There  wasn't  a  soul  in  the  world  who  would 
fight  to  take  my  part  but  Hugh,  and  I  was,  in  all  my  pri- 
mary instincts,  a  clinging,  parasitic  thing  that  hated  to 
stand  alone. 

There  was  nothing  for  it  then  but  crying,  and  I  did  that 
to  the  best  of  my  ability;  not  loudly,  of  course,  or  vul- 
garly, but  gently  and  sentimentally,  with  an  immense  pity 
for  myself.  I  cried  for  what  had  happened  that  day  and 
for  what  had  happened  yesterday.  I  cried  for  things  long 
past,  which  I  had  omitted  to  cry  for  at  the  time.  When  I' 
had  finished  with  these  I  went  further  back  to  dig  up  other 
ignominies,  and  I  cried  for  them.  I  cried  for  my  father  and 
mother  and  my  orphaned  condition ;  I  cried  for  the  way  in 
which  my  father — who  was  a  good,  kind  man,du  reste — had 
lived  on  his  principal,  and  left  me  with  scarcely  a  penny  to 
my  name ;  I  cried  for  my  various  disappointments  in  love, 
and  for  the  girl  friends  who  had  predeceased  me.  I  massed 
all  these  motives  together  and  cried  for  them  in  bulk.  I 
cried  for  Hugh  and  the  brilliant  future  we  should  have  on 
the  money  he  would  make.  I  cried  for  Larry  Strangways 
and  the  loneliness  his  absence  would  entail  on  me.  I  cried 
for  the  future  as  well  as  for  the  past,  and  if  I  could  have 
thought  of  a  future  beyond  the  future  I  should  have  cried 
for  that.  It  was  delicious  and  sad  and  consoling  all  at 
once;  and  when  I  had  no  more  tears  I  felt  almost  as  if 
Hugh's  strong  arm  had  been  about  me,  and  I  was  com- 
forted. 

I  was  just  wiping  my  eyes  and  wondering  whether  at  the 
moment  of  going  homeward  my  nose  would  be  too  red, 
when  I  heard  a  quiet  step.  I  thought  I  must  be  mistaken. 
It  was  so  unlikely  that  any  one  would  be  there  at  this  hour 

"5 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

of  the  day — the  servants  generally  came  down  at  night — 
that  for  a  minute  I  didn't  turn.  It  was  the  uncomfortable 
sense  that  some  one  was  behind  me  that  made  me  look 
back  at  last,  when  I  caught  the  flutter  of  lace  and  the 
shimmer  of  pale-rose  taffeta.  Mrs.  Brokenshire  had  worn 
lace  and  pale-rose  taffeta  at  the  lunch. 

Fear  and  amazement  wrestled  in  my  soul  together. 
Struggling  to  my  feet,  I  turned  round  as  slowly  as  I  could. 

"Don't  get  up,"  she  said  in  a  sweet,  quiet  voice.  "I'll 
come  and  sit  down  beside  you,  if  I  may."  She  had  already 
seated  herself  on  a  low  flat  rock  as  she  said,  "I  saw  you 
were  crying,  so  I  waited." 

I  am  not  usually  at  a  loss  for  words,  but  I  was  then.  I 
stuttered  and  stammered  and  babbled,  without  being  able 
to  say  anything  articulate.  Indeed,  I  had  nothing  articu- 
late to  say.  The  mind  had  suspended  its  action. 

My  impressions  were  all  subconscious,  but  registered 
exactly.  She  was  the  most  exquisite  production  I  had  ever 
seen  in  human  guise.  Her  perfection  was  that  of  some 
lovely  little  bird  in  which  no  color  fails  to  shade  harmoni- 
ously into  some  other  color,  in  which  no  single  feather  is  out 
of  place.  The  word  I  used  of  her  was  soignee — that  which 
is  smoothed  and  curled  and  polished  and  caressed  till  there 
is  not  an  eyelash  which  hasn't  received  its  measure  of  at- 
tention. I  don't  mean  that  she  was  artificial,  or  that  her 
effects  were  too  thought  out.  She  was  no  more  artificial 
than  a  highly  cultivated  flower  is  artificial,  or  a  many- 
faceted  diamond,  or  a  King  Charles  spaniel,  or  anything 
else  that  is  carefully  bred  or  cut  or  shaped.  She  was 
the  work  of  some  specialist  in  beauty,  who  had  no  aim  in 
view  but  to  give  to  the  world  the  loveliest :  thing  possible. 

When  I  had  mastered  my  confusion  sufficiently  I  sat 
down  with  the  words,  rather  lamely  spoken: 

1x6 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

"I  didn't  know  any  one  was  here.  I  hope  I  haven't 
kept  you  standing  long." 

"No;  but  I  was  watching  you.  I  came  down  only  a 
few  minutes  after  you  did.  You  see,  I  was  afraid — when 
we  came  away  from  Mrs.  Rossiter's — that  you  might  be 
unhappy." 

"I'm  not  as  unhappy  as  I  was,"  I  faltered,  without 
knowing  what  I  said,  and  was  rewarded  to  see  her  smile. 

It  was  an  innocent  smile,  without  glee,  a  little  sad  in 
fact,  but  full  of  unutterable  things  like  a  very  young  child's. 
I  had  never  seen  such  teeth,  so  white, so  small, so  regular. 

"I'm  glad  of  that,"  she  said,  simply.  "I  thought  if 
some — some  other  woman  was  near  you,  you  mightn't  feel 
so — so  much  alone.  That's  why  I  watched  round  and 
followed  you." 

I  could  have  fallen  at  her  feet,  but  I  restricted  myself  to 
saying: 

"Thank  you  very  much.  It  does  make  a  difference." 
I  got  courage  to  add,  however,  with  a  smile  of  my  own, 
"I  see  you  know." 

"Yes,  I  know.  I've  thought  aboufe  you  a  good  deal 
since  that  day  about  a  fortnight  ago — you  remember?" 

"Oh  yes,  I  remember.  I'm  not  likely  to  forget,  am  I? 
Only,  you  see,  I  had  no  idea — if  I  had,  I  mightn't  have 
felt  so — so  awfully  forlorn." 

Her  eyes  rested  upon  me.  I  can  only  say  of  them  that 
they  were  sweet  and  lovely,  which  is  saying  nothing  at  all. 
Sweet  and  lovely  are  the  words  that  come  to  me  when  I 
think  of  her,  and  they  are  so  lamentably  overworked.  She 
seemed  to  study  me  with  a  child-like  unconsciousness-. 

"Yes,"  she  said  at  las*,  "I  suppose  you  do  feel  forlorn. 
I  didn't  think  of  that  or — or  I  might  have  managed  to 
come  to  you  before," 

117 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

"That  you  should  have  come  now,"  I  said,  warmly, 
"is  the  kindest  thing  one  human  being  ever  did  for 
another." 

Again  there  was  the  smile,  a  little  to  one  side  of  the 
mouth,  wistful,  wan. 

"  Oh  no,  it  isn't.  I've  really  come  on  my  own  account." 
I  waited  for  some  explanation  of  this,  but  she  only  went 
on:  "Tell  me  about  yourself.  How  did  you  come  here? 
Ethel  Rossiter  has  never  really  said  anything  about  you. 
I  should  like  to  know." 

Her  manner  had  the  gentle  command  that  queens  and 
princesses  and  very  rich  women  unconsciously  acquire. 
I  tried  to  obey  her,  but  found  little  to  say.  Uttered  to  her 
my  facts  were  so  meager.  I  told  her  of  my  father  and 
mother,  of  my  father's  mania  for  old  books,  of  Louise  and 
Victoria  and  their  husbands,  of  my  visits  abroad;  but  I 
felt  her  attention  wandering.  That  is,  I  felt  she  was  inter- 
ested not  in  my  data,  but  in  me.  Halifax  and  Canada  and 
British  army  and  navy  life  and  rare  first  editions  were 
outside  the  range  of  her  ken.  Paris  she  knew ;  and  Lon- 
don she  knew ;  but  not  from  any  point  of  view  from  which  I 
could  speak  of  them.  I  could  see  she  was  the  well-placed 
American  who  knows  some  of  the  great  English  houses  and 
all  of  the  great  English  hotels,  but  nothing  of  that  Britan- 
nic backbone  of  which  I  might  have  been  called  a  rib.  She 
broke  in  presently,  not  apropos  of  anything  I  was  saying, 
with  the  words : 

"How  old  are  you?" 

I  told  her  I  was  twenty-four. 

"I'm  twenty-nine. ' ' 

I  said  I  had  understood  as  much  from  Mrs.  Rossiter,  but 
that  I  could  easily  have  supposed  her  no  older  than  myself. 
This  was  true .  Had  there  not  been  that  something  mourn- 

118 


THE   MARRIAGE    SHE    HAD    MISSED   WAS    ON    HER    MIND.        IT    CREATED 

AN    OBSESSION    OR   A   BROKEN    HEART,    I    WASN'T 

QUITE     SURE    WHICH 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

ful  in  her  face  which  simulates  maturity  I  could  have 
thought  of  her  as  nothing  but  a  girl.  If  I  stood  in  awe  of 
her  it  was  only  of  what  I  guessed  at  as  a  sorrow. 

She  went  on  to  give  me  two  or  three  details  of  her  life, 
with  nearly  all  of  which  I  was  familiar  through  hints  from 
Hugh  and  Ethel  Rossiter. 

' '  We're  really  Philadelphians,  my  mother  and  I.  We've 
lived  a  good  deal  in  New  York,  of  course,  and  abroad.  I 
was  at  school  in  Paris,  too,  at  the  Convent  des  Abeilles." 
She  wandered  on,  somewhat  inconsequentially,  with  facts 
of  this  sort,  when  she  added,  suddenly:  "I  was  to  have 
married  some  one  else." 

I  knew  then  that  I  had  the  clue  to  her  thought.  The 
marriage  she  had  missed  was  on  her  mind.  It  created  an 
obsession  or  a  broken  heart,  I  wasn't  quite  sure  which. 
It  was  what  she  wanted  to  talk  about,  though  her  glance 
fell  before  the  spark  of  intelligence  in  mine. 

Since  there  was  nothing  I  could  say  in  actual  words,  I 
merely  murmured  sympathetically.  At  the  same  time 
there  came  to  me,  like  the  slow  breaking  of  a  dawn,  an 
illuminating  glimpseof  the  great  J.Howard's  life.  I  seemed 
to  be  admitted  into  its  secret,  into  a  perception  of  its 
weak  spot,  more  fully  than  his  wife  had  any  notion  of. 
She  would  never,  I  was  sure,  see  what  she  was  betraying  to 
me  from  my  point  of  view.  She  would  never  see  how  she 
was  giving  him  away.  She  wouldn't  even  see  how  she  was 
giving  away  herself — she  was  so  sweet,  and  gentle,  and 
child-like,  and  unsuspecting. 

I  don't  know  for  how  many  seconds  her  quiet,  inconse- 
quential speech  trickled  on  without  my  being  able  to 
follow  it.  I  came  to  myself  again,  as  it  were,  on  hearing 
her  say: 

"  And  if  you  do  love  him,  oh,  don't  give  him  up !" 
9  119 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

I  grasped  the  fact  then  that  I  had  lost  something  about 
Hugh,  and  did  my  best  to  catch  up  with  it. 

"I  don't  mean  to,  if  either  of  my  conditions  is  fulfilled. 
You  heard  what  they  were." 

"  Oh,  but  if  I  were  you  I  wouldn't  make  them.  That's 
where  I  think  you're  wrong.  If  you  love  him — " 

' '  I  couldn't  steal  him  from  his  family,  even  if  I  loved  him. ' ' 

"Oh,  but  it  wouldn't  be  stealing.  When  two  people 
love  each  other  there's  nothing  else  to  think  about." 

"And  yet  that  might  sometimes  be  dangerous  doctrine." 

"If  there  was  never  any  danger  there'd  never  be  any 
courage.  And  courage  is  one  of  the  finest  things  in  life." 

"Yes,  of  course;  but  even  courage  can  carry  one  very 
far." 

"Nothing  can  carry  us  so  far  as  love.  I  see  that  now. 
It's  why  I'm  anxious  about  poor  Hugh.  I — I  know  a  man 
who — who  loves  a  woman  whom  he — he  couldn't  marry, 
and — "  She  caught  herself  up.  "  I'm  fond  of  Hugh,  you 
see,  even  though  he  doesn't  like  me.  I  wish  he  under- 
stood, that  they  all  understood — that — that  it  isn't  my 
fault.  If  I  could  have  had  my  way — "  She  righted  her- 
self here  with  a  slight  change  of  tense.  "  If  I  could  have 
my  way,  Hugh  would  marry  the  woman  he's  in  love  with 
and  who's  in  love  with  him." 

I  tried  to  enroll  her  decisively  on  my  side. 

"So  that  you  don't  agree  with  Mr.  Brokenshire." 

Her  immediate  response  was  to  color  with  a  soft,  suf- 
fused rose-pink  like  that  of  the  inside  of  shells.  Her  eyes 
grew  misty  with  a  kind  of  helplessness.  She  looked  at  me 
imploringly,  and  looked  away.  One  might  have  supposed 
that  she  was  pleading  with  me  to  be  let  off  answering. 
Nevertheless,  when  she  spoke  at  last,  her  words  brought 
me  to  a  new  phase  of  her  self -revelation. 

120 


THE   HIGH    HEART 

"Why  aren't  you  afraid  of  him?" 

"Oh,  but  I  am." 

"Yes,  but  not  like — "  Again  she  saved  herself .  "Yes, 
but  not  like — so  many  people.  You  may  be  afraid  of  him 
inside,  but  you  fight." 

"Any  one  fights  for  right." 

There  was  a  repetition  of  the  wistful  smile,  a  little  to  the 
left  corner  of  the  mouth. 

" Oh,  do  they  ?    I  wish  I  did.     Or  rather  I  wish  I  had." 

"It's  never  too  late,"  I  declared,  with  what  was  meant 
to  be  encouragement. 

There  was  a  queer  little  gleam  in  her  eye,  like  that  which 
comes  into  the  pupil  of  a  startled  bird. 

"  So  I've  heard  some  one  else  say.  I  suppose  it's  true — 
but  it  frightens  me." 

I  was  quite  strangely  uneasy.  Hints  of  her  story  came 
back  to  me,  but  I  had  never  heard  it  completely  enough  to 
be  able  to  piece  the  fragments  together.  It  was  new  for 
me  to  imagine  myself  called  on  to  protect  any  one — I  need- 
ed protection  so  much  for  myself ! — but  I  was  moved  with  a 
protective  instinct  toward  her.  It  was  rather  ridiculous, 
and  yet  it  was  so. 

"Only  one  must  be  sure  one  is  right  before  one  fights, 
mustn't  one?"  was  all  I  could  think  of  saying. 

She  responded  dreamily,  looking  seaward. 

"Don't  you  think  the: 3  may  be  worse  things  than 
wrong?" 

This  being  so  contrary  to  my  pet  principles,  I  answered, 
emphatically,  that  I  didn't  think  so  at  all.  I  brought  out 
my  maxim  that  if  you  did  right  nothing  but  right  could 
come  of  it;  but  she  surprised  me  by  saying,  simply,  "I 
don't  believe  that." 

I  was  a  little  indignant. 

121 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

"  But  it's  not  a  matter  of  believing;  it's  one  of  proving,  of 
demonstration. ' ' 

"I've  done  right,  and  wrong  came  of  it." 

"Oh,  but  it  couldn't — not  in  the  long  run." 

"Well,  then  I  did  wrong.  That's  what  I've  been  afraid 
of,  and  what — what  some  one  else  tells  me."  If  a  pet  bird 
could  look  at  you  with  a  challenging  expression  it  was  the 
thing  she  did.  ' '  Now  what  do  you  say  ?' ' 

I  really  didn't  know  what  to  say.  I  spoke  from  instinct, 
and  some  common  sense. 

"  If  one's  done  wrong,  or  made  a  mistake,  I  suppose  the 
only  way  one  can  rectify  it  is  to  begin  again  to  do  right. 
Right  must  have  a  rectifying  power." 

"But  if  you've  made  a  mistake  the  mistake  is  there, 
unless  you  go  back  and  unmake  it.  If  you  don't,  isn't  it 
what  they  call  building  on  a  bad  foundation?" 

"I  dare  say  it  is;  and  yet  you  can't  push  a  material 
comparison  too  far  when  you're  thinking  of  spiritual 
things.  This  is  spiritual,  isn't  it?  I  suppose  one  can't 
really  do  evil  and  expect  good  to  come  of  it;  but  one  can 
overcome  evil  with  good." 

She  looked  at  me  with  a  sweet  mistiness. 

"I've  no  doubt  that's  true,  but  it's  very  deep.  It's  too 
deep  for  me."  She  rose  with  an  air  of  dismissing  the  sub- 
ject, though  she  continued  to  speak  of  it  allusively.  "You 
know  so  much  about  it.  I  could  see  you  did  from  the  first. 
If  I  was  to  tell  you  the  whole  story — but,  of  course,  I  can't 
do  that.  No,  don't  get  up.  I  have  to  run  away,  because 
we're  expecting  people  to  tea;  but  I  should  have  liked 
staying  to  talk  with  you.  You're  awfully  clever,  aren't 
you?  I  suppose  it  must  be  living  round  in  those  queer 
places — Gibraltar,  didn't  you  say?  I've  seen  Gibraltar, 
but  only  from  the  steamer,  on  the  way  to  Naples.  I  felt 

122 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

that  I  was  with  you  from  that  very  first  time  I  saw  you. 
I'd  seen  you  before,  of  course,  with  little  Gladys,  but  not  to 
notice  you.  I  never  noticed  you  till  I  heard  that  Hugh 
was  in  love  with  you.  That  was  just  before  Mr.  Broken- 
shire  took  me  over — you  remember! — that  day.  He 
wanted  me  to  see  how  easily  he  could  deal  with  people  who 
opposed  him;  but  I  didn't  think  he  succeeded  very  well. 
He  made  you  go  and  sit  at  a  distance.  That  was  to  show 
you  he  had  the  power.  Did  you  notice  what  I  did?  Oh, 
I'm  glad.  I  wanted  you  to  understand  that  if  it  was  a 
question  of  love  I  was — I  was  with  you.  You  saw  that, 
didn't  you?  Oh,  I'm  glad.  I  must  run  away  now. 
We've  people  to  tea;  but  some  time,  if  I  can  manage  it, 
I'll  come  again." 

She  had  begun  slipping  up  the  path,  like  a  great  rose- 
colored  moth  in  the  greenery,  when  she  turned  to  say: 

"I  can  never  do  anything  for  you,  I'm  too  afraid  of 
him;  but  I'm  on  your  side." 

After  she  had  gone  I  began  putting  two  and  two  together. 
What  her  visit  did  for  me  especially  was  to  distract  my 
mind.  I  got  a  better  perspective  on  my  own  small  drama 
in  seeing  it  as  incidental  to  a  larger  one.  That  there  was  a 
large  one  here  I  had  no  doubt,  though  I  could  neither  seize 
nor  outline  its  proportions.  As  far  as  I  could  judge  of  my 
visitor  I  found  her  dazed  by  the  magnitude  of  the  thing 
that  had  happened  to  her,  whatever  that  was.  She  was 
good  and  kind;  she  hadn't  a  thought  that  wasn't  tender; 
normally  she  would  have  been  the  devoted,  clinging  type 
of  wife  I  longed  to  be  myself;  and  yet  some  one's  passion, 
or  some  one's  ambition,  or  both  in  collusion,  had  caught 
her  like  a  bird  in  a  net. 

It  was  perhaps  because  she  was  a  woman  and  I  was  a 
woman  and  J.  Howard  was  a  man  that  my  reactions  con- 

123 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

cerned  themselves  chiefly  with  him.  I  thought  of  him 
throughout  the  afternoon.  I  began  to  get  new  views  of 
him.  I  wondered  if  he  knew  of  himself  what  I  knew.  I 
supposed  he  did.  I  supposed  he  must.  He  couldn't  have 
been  married  two  or  three  years  to  this  sweet  stricken 
creature  without  seeing  that  her  heart  wasn't  his.  Fur- 
thermore, he  couldn't  have  beheld,  as  he  and  I  had  beheld 
that  afternoon,  the  hand  that  went  up  palm  outward, 
without  divining  a  horror  of  his  person  that  was  more  than 
a  shrinking  from  his  poor  contorted  eye.  For  love  the 
contorted  eye  would  have  meant  more  love,  since  it  would 
have  been  love  with  its  cognate  of  pity;  but  not  so  that 
uplifted  hand  and  that  instinctive  waving  of  him  back. 
There  was  more  than  an  involuntary  repulsion  in  that, 
more  than  an  instant  of  abhorrence.  What  there  was  he 
must  have  discovered,  he  must  have  tasted,  from  the 
minute  he  first  took  her  in  his  arms. 

I  was  sorry  for  him.  I  could  throw  enough  of  the  mas- 
culine into  my  imagination  to  know  how  he  must  adore 
a  creature  of  such  perfected  charm.  She  was  the  sort  of 
woman  men  would  adore,  especially  the  men  whose  ideal 
lies  first  of  all  in  the  physical.  For  them  it  would  mean 
nothing  that  she  lacked  mentality,  that  the  pendulum  of 
her  nature  had  only  a  limited  swing;  that  she  was  as  good 
as  she  looked  would  be  enough,  seeing  that  she  looked  like 
an  angel  straight  out  of  heaven.  In  spite  of  poor  J.  How- 
ard's kingly  suavity  I  knew  he  must  have  minutes  of  sheer 
animal  despair,  of  fierce  and  bitter  suffering. 

Mrs.  Rossiter  spoke  to  me  that  evening  with  a  suggestion 
of  reprimand,  which  was  letting  me  off  easily.  I  was  so 
sure  of  my  dismissal,  that  when  I  returned  to  the  house 
from  the  shore  I  expected  some  sort  of  lettre  de  conge;  but  I 
found  nothing.  I  had  had  supper  with  Gladys  and  put  her 

124 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

to  bed  when  the  maid  brought  me  a  message  to  say  that 
Mrs.  Rossiter  would  like  me  to  come  down  and  see  her 
dress,  as  she  was  going  out  to  dinner. 

I  was  admiring  the  dress,  which  was  a  new  one,  when  she 
said,  rather  fretfully: 

"  I  wish  you  wouldn't  talk  like  that  to  father.  It  up- 
sets him  so." 

I  was  adjusting  a  slight  fullness  at  the  back,  which  made 
it  the  easier  for  me  to  answer. 

"  I  wouldn't  if  he  didn't  talk  like  that  to  me.  What  can 
I  do  ?  I  have  to  say  something. ' ' 

She  was  peering  into  the  cheval  glass  over  her  shoulder, 
giving  her  attention  to  two  things  at  once. 

"  I  mean  your  saying  you  expected  both  of  those  prepos- 
terous things  to  happen.  Of  course,  you  don't — nor  either 
of  them — and  it  only  rubs  him  up  the  wrong  way." 

I  was  too  meek  now  to  argue  the  point.  Besides,  I  was 
preoccupied  with  the  widening  interests  in  which  I  found 
myself  involved.  To  probe  the  security  of  my  position 
once  more,  I  said: 

"  I  wonder  you  stand  it — that  you  don't  send  me  away." 

She  was  still  twisting  in  front  of  the  cheval  glass. 

"  Don't  you  think  that  shoulder-strap  is  loose  ?  It  really 
looks  as  if  the  whole  thing  would  slip  off  me.  If  he  can 
stand  it  I  can,"  she  added,  as  a  matter  of  secondary  con- 
cern. 

"Oh,  then  he  can  stand  it."  I  felt  the  shoulder-strap. 
"No,  I  think  it's  all  right,  if  you  don't  wriggle  too  much." 

"  I'm  sure  it's  going  to  come  down — and  there  I  shall  be. 
He  has  to  stand  it,  don't  you  see,  or  let  you  think  that  you 
wound  him?" 

I  was  frankly  curious. 

"Do  I  wound  him?" 

125 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

"He'd  never  let  you  know  it  if  you  did.  The  fact  that 
he  ignores  you  and  lets  you  stay  on  with  me  is  the  only 
thing  by  which  I  can  judge.  If  you  didn't  hurt  him  at  all 
he'd  tell  me  to  send  you  about  your  business. ' '  She  turned 
from  the  glass.  "Well,  if  you  say  that  strap  is  all  right  I 
suppose  it  must  be,  but  I  don't  feel  any  too  sure."  She 
was  picking  up  her  gloves  and  her  fan  which  the  maid  had 
laid  out,  when  she  said,  suddenly:  "If  you're  so  keen  on 
getting  married,  for  goodness'  sake  why  don't  you  take 
that  young  Strangways?" 

My  sensation  can  only  be  compared  to  that  of  a  person 
who  has  got  a  terrific  blow  on  the  head  from  a  trip-hammer. 
I  seemed  to  wonder  why  I  hadn't  been  crushed  or  struck 
dead.  As  it  was,  I  felt  that  I  could  never  move  again  from 
the  spot  on  which  I  stood.  I  was  vaguely  conscious  of 
something  outraged  within  me,  and  yet  was  too  stunned  to 
resent  it.  I  could  only  gasp,  feebly,  after  what  seemed  an 
interminable  time:  "In  the  first  place,  I'm  not  so  awfully 
keen  on  getting  married — " 

She  was  examining  her  gloves. 

"There,  that  stupid  SeYaphine  has  put  me  out  two  lefts. 
No,  she  hasn't;  it's  all  right.  Stuff,  my  dear!  Every 
girl  is  keen  on  getting  married." 

"And  then,"  I  stammered  on,  "Mr.  Strangways  has 
never  given  me  the  chance." 

"  Oh,  well,  he  will.  Do  hand  me  my  wrap,  like  a  love." 
I  was  putting  the  wrap  over  her  shoulders  as  she  repeated: 
"  Oh,  well,  he  will.  I  can  tell  by  the  way  he  looks  at  you. 
It  would  be  ever  so  much  more  suitable.  Jim  says  he'll  be 
a  first-class  man  in  time — if  you  don't  rush  in  like  an  idiot 
and  marry  Hugh." 

"  I  may  marry  Hugh,"  I  tried  to  say,  loftily,  "but  I  hope 
I  sha'n't  do  it  like  an  idiot." 

126 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

She  swept  toward  the  stairway,  but  she  had  left  me  with 
subjects  for  thought  not  only  for  that  evening,  but  for  the 
next  day  and  the  next.  Now  that  the  first  shock  was  over 
I  managed  to  work  up  the  proper  sense  of  indignity.  I 
told  myself  I  was  hurt  and  offended.  She  shouldn't  have 
mentioned  such  a  thing.  I  wouldn't  have  stood  it  from 
one  of  my  own  sisters.  I  had  never  thought  of  Larry 
Strangways  in  any  such  way,  and  to  do  so  disturbed  our 
relations.  To  begin  with,  I  wasn't  in  love  with  him;  and 
to  end  with,  he  was  too  poor.  Not  that  I  was  looking  for  a 
rich  husband;  but  neither  was  I  a  lunatic.  It  would  be 
years  before  he  could  think  of  marrying,  if  there  were  no 
other  consideration ;  and  in  the  mean  time  there  was  Hugh. 

There  was  Hugh  with  his  letters  from  Boston,  full  of 
high  ambitious  hopes.  Cousin  Andrew  Brew  had  written 
from  Bar  Harbor  that  he  was  coming  to  town  in  a  day  or 
two  and  would  give  him  the  interview  he  demanded. 
Already  Hugh  had  his  eye  on  a  little  house  on  Beacon  Hill 
— so  like  a  corner  of  Mayfair,  he  wrote,  if  Mayfair  stood 
on  an  eminence — in  which  we  could  be  as  snug  as  two 
love-birds.  I  was  composing  in  my  mind  the  letter  I 
should  write  to  my  aunt  in  Halifax,  asking  to  be  allowed  to 
come  back  for  the  wedding. 

I  filled  in  the  hours  wondering  how  Larry  Strangways 
looked  at  me  when  there  was  only  Mrs.  Rossiter  as  spec- 
tator. I  knew  how  he  looked  at  me  when  I  was  looking 
back — it  was  with  that  gleaming  smile  which  defied  you 
to  see  behind  it,  as  the  sun  defies  you  to  see  behind  its  rays. 
But  I  wanted  to  know  how  he  looked  at  me  when  my  head 
was  turned  another  way;  to  know  how  the  sun  appears 
when  you  view  it  through  a  telescope  that  nullifies  its 
defensive.  For  that  I  had  only  my  imagination,  since  he 
had  obtained  two  or  three  days'  leave  to  go  to  New  York 

127 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

to  see  his  new  employer.  He  had  warned  me  to  betray  no 
hint  as  to  the  new  employer's  name,  since  there  was  a  feud 
between  the  Brokenshire  clan  and  Stacy  Grainger  which  I 
connected  vaguely  with  the  story  I  had  heard  of  Mrs. 
Brokenshire. 

Then  on  the  fourth  day  Hugh  came  back.  He  appeared 
as  he  had  on  saying  good-by,  while  I  was  breakfasting  with 
Gladys  in  the  open  air  and  Broke  was  with  his  mother. 
Hugh  was  more  pallid  than  when  he  went  away;  he  was 
positively  woe-begone.  Everything  that  was  love  in  me 
leaped  into  flame  at  sight  of  his  honest,  sorry  face. 

I  think  I  can  tell  his  story  best  by  giving  it  in  my  own 
words,  in  the  way  of  direct  narration.  He  didn't  tell  it  to 
me  all  at  once,  but  bit  by  bit,  as  new  details  occurred  to 
him.  The  picture  was  slow  in  printing  itself  on  my  mind, 
but  when  I  got  it  it  was  with  satisfactory  exactitude. 

He  had  been  three  days  at  the  hotel  in  Boston  before 
learning  that  Cousin  Andrew  Brew  was  actually  in  town 
and  would  see  him  at  the  bank  at  eleven  on  a  certain 
morning.  Hugh  was  on  the  moment.  The  promptitude 
with  which  his  relative  sprang  up  in  his  seat,  somewhat  as 
if  impelled  by  a  piece  of  mechanism,  was  truly  cordial. 
Not  less  was  the  handshake  and  the  formula  of  greeting. 
The  sons  of  J.  Howard  Brokenshire  were  always  welcome 
guests  among  their  Boston  kin,  on  whom  they  shed  a 
pleasant  luster  of  metropolitan  glory.  While  the  Brews 
and  Borrodailes  prided  themselves  on  what  they  called 
their  Boston  provinciality  and  didn't  believe  to  be  pro- 
vinciality at  all,  they  enjoyed  the  New  York  connection. 

"Hello,  Hugh!  Glad  to  see  you.  Come  in.  Sit  down. 
Looking  older  than  when  I  saw  you  last.  Growing  a  mus- 
tache. Not  married  yet?  Sit  down  and  tell  us  all  about 
it.  What  can  I  do  for  you?  Sit  down." 

128 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

Hugh  took  the  comfortable  little  upright  arm-chair  that 
stood  at  the  corner  of  his  cousin's  desk,  while  the  latter 
resumed  the  seat  of  honor.  Knowing  that  the  banker's 
time  was  valuable,  and  feeling  that  he  would  reveal  his 
aptitude  for  business  by  going  to  the  point  at  once,  the 
younger  man  began  his  tale.  He  had  just  reached  the  fact 
that  he  had  fallen  in  love  with  a  little  girl  on  whose  merits 
he  wouldn't  enlarge,  since  all  lovers  had  the  same  sort  of 
things  to  say,  though  he  was  surer  of  his  data  than  others 
of  his  kind,  when  there  was  a  tinkle  at  the  desk  telephone. 

"Excuse  me." 

During  the  conversation  in  which  Cousin  Andrew  then 
engaged  Hugh  was  able  to  observe  the  long-established, 
unassuming  comfort  of  this  friendly  office,  which  suggested 
the  cozy  air  that  hangs  about  the  smoking-rooms  of  good 
old  English  inns.  There  was  a  warm  worn  carpet  on  the 
floor;  deep  leather  arm-chairs  showed  the  effect  of  contact 
with  two  generations  of  moneyed  backs;  on  the  walls  the 
lithographed  heads  of  Brews  and  Borrodailes  bore  witness 
to  the  firm's  respectability.  In  the  atmosphere  a  faint 
odor  of  tobacco  emphasized  the  human  associations. 

Cousin  Andrew  emphasized  them,  too.  "Now!"  He 
put  down  the  receiver  and  turned  to  Hugh  with  an  air  of 
relief  at  being  able  to  give  him  his  attention.  He  was  a  tall, 
thin  man  with  a  head  like  a  nut.  It  would  have  been  an 
expressionless  nut  had  it  not  been  for  a  facile  tight-lipped 
smile  that  creased  his  face  as  stretching  creases  rubber. 
Coming  and  going  rapidly,  it  gave  him  the  appearance  of 
mirth,  creating  at  each  end  of  a  long,  mobile  mouth  two 
concentric  semicircles  cutting  deep  into  the  cheeks  that 
would  have  been  of  value  to  a  low  comedian.  A  slate- 
colored  morning  suit,  a  white  pique"  edge  to  the  opening  of 
the  waistcoat,  a  slate-colored  tie  with  a  pearl  in  it,  em- 

129 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

phasized  the  union  of  dignity  and  lightness  which  were  the 
keynotes  to  Cousin  Andrew's  character.  Blended  as  they 
were,  they  formed  a  delightfully  debonair  combination, 
bringing  down  to  your  own  level  a  man  who  was  somebody 
in  the  world  of  finance.  It  was  part  of  his  endearing  qual- 
ity that  he  liked  you  to  see  him  as  a  jolly  good  fellow  no 
whit  better  than  yourself.  He  was  fond  of  gossip  and  of 
the  lighter  topics  of  the  moment.  He  was  also  fond  of 
dancing,  and  frequented  most  of  the  gatherings,  private 
and  public,  for  the  cultivation  of  that  art  which  was  the 
vogue  of  the  year  before  the  Great  War.  With  his  tall, 
limber  figure  he  passed  for  less  than  his  age  of  forty-three 
till  you  got  him  at  close  quarters. 

On  the  genial "  Now !"  in  which  there  was  an  inflection  of 
command  Hugh  went  on  with  his  tale,  telling  of  his  breach 
with  his  father  and  his  determination  to  go  into  business 
for  himself. 

"I  ought  to  be  independent,  anyhow,  at  my  age,"  he 
declared.  "  I've  my  own  views,  and  it's  only  right  to  con- 
fess to  you  that  I'm  a  bit  of  a  Socialist.  That  won't  make 
any  difference,  however,  to  our  working  together,  Cousin 
Andrew,  for,  to  make  a  long  story  short,  I've  looked  in  to 
tell  you  that  I've  come  to  the  place  where  I  should  like  to 
accept  your  kind  offer." 

The  statement  was  received  with  cheerful  detachment, 
while  Cousin  Andrew  threw  himself  forward  with  his 
arms  on  his  desk,  rubbing  his  long,  thin  hands  together. 

1 '  My  kind  offer  ?    What  was  that  ?" 

Hugh  was  slightly  dashed. 

"About  my  coming  to  you  if  ever  I  wanted  to  go  into 
business." 

4 '  Oh !    You're  going  into  business  ?" 

Hugh  named  the  places  and  dates  at  which,  during  the 

130 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

past  few  years,  Cousin  Andrew  had  offered  his  help  to  his 
young  kinsman  if  ever  it  was  needed. 

Cousin  Andrew  tossed  himself  back  in  his  chair  with  one 
of  his  brisk,  restless  movements. 

"  Did  I  say  that  ?  Well,  if  I  did  I '11  stick  to  it."  There 
was  another  tinkle  at  the  telephone.  "  Excuse  me." 

Hugh  had  time  for  reflection  and  some  irritation.  He 
had  not  expected  to  be  thrust  into  the  place  of  a  petitioner, 
or  to  have  to  make  explanations  galling  to  his  pride.  He 
had  counted  not  only  on  his  cousinship,  but  on  his  position 
in  the  world  as  J.  Howard  Brokenshire's  son.  It  seemed  to 
him  that  Cousin  Andrew  was  disposed  to  undervalue  that. 

"I  don't  want  to  hold  you  to  anything  you  don't  care 
for,  Cousin  Andrew,"  he  began,  when  his  relative  had  again 
put  the  receiver  aside,  "but  I  understood — " 

"Oh,  that's  all  right.  I've  no  doubt  I  said  it.  I  do 
recall  something  of  the  sort,  vaguely,  at  a  time  when  I 
thought  your  father  might  want —  In  any  case  we  can  fix 
you  up.  Sure  to  be  something  you  can  do.  When'd  you 
like  to  begin?" 

Hugh  expressed  his  willingness  to  be  put  into  office  at 
once. 

"Just  so.  Turn  you  over  to  old  Williamson.  He  licks 
the  young  ones  into  shape.  Suppose  your  father  '11  think 
it  hard  of  us  to  go  against  him.  But  on  the  other  hand  he 
may  be  pleased — he'll  know  you're  in  safe  hands." 

It  was  a  delicate  thing  for  Hugh  to  attempt,  but  as  he 
was  going  into  business  not  from  an  irresistible  impulse 
toward  a  financial  career,  but  in  order  to  make  enough 
money  to  marry  on,  he  felt  obliged  to  ask,  in  such  terms  as 
he  could  command,  how  much  money  he  should  make. 

"Just  so!"  Cousin  Andrew  took  up  the  receiver  again. 
"Want  to  speak  to  Mr.  Williamson.  .  .  .  Oh,  William- 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

son,  how  much  is  Duffers  getting  now?  .  .  .  And  how 
much  before  that?  .  .  .  Good!    Thanks!" 

The  result  of  these  investigations  was  communicated  to 
Hugh.  He  should  receive  Duffers's  pay,  and  when  he  had 
earned  it  should  come  in  for  Duffers's  promotion.  The 
immediate  effect  was  to  make  him  look  startled  and  blank. 
"What?"  was  his  only  question;  but  it  contained  several 
shades  of  incredulity. 

Cousin  Andrew  took  this  dismay  in  good  part. 

"Why,  what  did  you  expect?" 

Hugh  could  only  stammer: 

"  I  thought  it  would  be  more." 

"How  much  more?" 

Hugh  sought  an  answer  that  wouldn't  betray  the  ludi- 
crous figure  of  his  hopes. 

"Well,  enough  to  live  on  as  a  married  man  at  least." 

The  banker's  good  nature  was  proved  by  the  creases  of 
his  rubber  smile. 

"What  did  you  think  you'd  be  worth  to  us — with  no 
backing  from  your  father?" 

The  question  was  of  the  kind  commonly  called  a  poser. 
Hugh  had  not,  so  I  understood  from  him,  hitherto  thought 
of  his  entering  his  kinsfolks'  banking-house  as  primarily 
a  matter  of  earning  capacity.  It  wasn't  to  be  like  working 
for  "any  old  firm."  He  had  prefigured  it  as  becoming  a 
component  part  of  a  machine  that  turned  out  money  of 
which  he  would  get  his  share,  that  share  being  in  propor- 
tion to  the  dignity  of  the  house  itself  and  bearing  a  relation 
to  his  blood  connection  with  the  dominating  partners. 
When  Cousin  Andrew  had  repeated  his  question  Hugh  was 
obliged  to  reply: 

"I  wasn't  thinking  of  that  so  much  as  of  what  you'd  be 
worth  tome." 

132 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

"  We  could  be  worth  a  good  deal  to  you  in  time." 

There  was  a  ray  of  hope. 

' '  How  long  a  time  ?" 

"Oh,  twenty  or  thirty  years,  perhaps,  if  you  work  and 
save.  Of  course,  if  you  had  capital  to  bring  in — but  you 
haven't,  have  you?  Didn't  Cousin  Sophy,  your  mother, 
leave  everything  to  your  father?  I  thought  so.  Mind 
you,  I'm  putting  out  of  the  question  all  thought  of  your 
father's  coming  round  and  putting  money  in  for  you.  I'm 
talking  of  the  thing  on  the  ground  on  which  you've  put  it." 

Hugh  had  no  heart  to  resent  the  quirks  and  grimaces  in 
Cousin  Andrew's  smile.  He  had  all  he  could  do  in  taking 
his  leave  in  a  way  to  save  his  face  and  cast  the  episode  be- 
hind him.  The  banker  lent  himself  to  this  effort  with 
good-humored  grace,  accompanying  his  relative  to  the  door 
of  the  room,  where  he  shook  him  by  the  shoulder  as  he 
turned  the  knob. 

"Thought  you'd  go  right  in  as  a  director?  Not  the  first 
youngster  who's  had  that  idea,  and  you'll  not  be  the  last. 
Good-by.  Let  me  hear  from  you  if  you  change  your 
mind."  He  called  after  him,  as  the  door  was  about  to 
close:  "Best  try  to  fix  it  up  with  your  father,  Hugh.  As 
for  the  girl — well,  there'll  be  others,  and  more  in  your 
line." 


CHAPTER  IX 

ON  that  first  morning  I  got  no  more  than  the  gist  of 
what  had  happened  during  Hugh's  visit  to  his  cousin 
Andrew  Brew.  Hugh  announced  it  in  fact  by  a  metaphor 
as  soon  as  we  had  exchanged  greetings  and  he  had  sat  down 
at  the  table  with  his  arm  over  Gladys's  shoulder. 

"Well,  little  Alix,  I  got  it  where  the  chicken  got 
the  ax." 

"Where  was  that?"  I  asked,  innocently,  for  the  figure  of 
speech  was  new  to  me. 

"In  the  neck." 

Neither  of  us  laughed.  His  tone  was  so  lugubrious  as  to 
preclude  laughing.  But  I  understood.  I  may  say  that  by 
the  time  he  had  given  me  the  outline  of  what  he  had  to 
say  I  understood  more  than  he.  I  might  have  seen  poor 
Hugh's  limitations  before;  but  I  never  had.  During  the 
old  life  in  Halifax  I  had  known  plenty  of  young  men 
brought  up  in  comfort  who  couldn't  earn  a  living  when  the 
time  came  to  do  it.  If  I  had  never  classed  Hugh  among 
the  number,  it  was  because  the  Brokenshires  were  all  so 
rich  that  I  supposed  they  must  have  some  secret  prescrip- 
tion for  wringing  money  from  the  air.  Besides,  Hugh  was 
an  American ;  and  American  and  money  were  words  I  was 
accustomed  to  pronounce  together.  I  never  questioned 
his  ability  to  have  any  reasonable  income  he  named — till 
now.  Now  I  began  to  see  him  as  he  must  have  seen  him- 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

self  during  those  first  few  minutes  after  turning  his  back  on 
the  parental  haven,  alone  and  in  the  dark. 

I  cannot  say  that  for  the  moment  I  had  any  of  the 
qualms  of  fear.  My  yearning  over  him  was  too  motherly 
for  that.  I  wanted  to  comfort  and,  as  far  as  possible,  to 
encourage  him.  Something  within  me  whispered,  too,  the 
words,  "It's  going  to  be  up  to  me."  I  meant — or  that 
which  spoke  in  me  meant — that  the  whole  position  was 
reversed.  I  had  been  taking  my  ease  hitherto,  believing 
that  the  strong  young  man  who  had  asked  me  to  marry 
him  would  do  the  necessary  work.  It  was  to  be  up  to  him. 
My  part  was  to  be  the  passive  bliss  of  having  some  one  to 
love  me  and  maintain  me.  That  Hugh  loved  me  I  knew ; 
that  in  one  way  or  another  he  would  be  able  to  maintain 
me  I  took  for  granted.  With  a  Brokenshire,  I  assumed, 
that  would  be  the  last  of  cares.  And  now  I  saw  in  a  flash 
that  I  was  wrong;  that  I  who  was  nothing  but  a  parasite 
by  nature  would  somehow  have  to  give  my  strong  young 
man  support. 

When  all  was  said  that  he  could  say  at  the  moment  I 
took  the  responsibility  of  sending  Gladys  indoors  with  the 
maid  who  was  waiting  on  the  table,  after  which  I  asked 
Hugh  to  walk  down  the  lawn  with  me.  A  stone  balustrade 
ran  above  the  Cliff  Walk,  and  here  was  a  bit  of  shrubbery 
where  no  one  could  observe  us  from  the  house,  while 
passers  on  the  Cliff  Walk  could  see  us  only  by  looking  up- 
ward. At  that  hour  in  the  morning  even  they  were  likely 
to  be  rare. 

"Hugh,  darling,"  I  said,  "this  is  becoming  very,  very 
serious.  You're  throwing  yourself  out  of  house  and  home 
and  your  father's  good-will  for  my  sake.  We  must  think 
about  it,  Hugh — " 

His  answer  was  to  seize  me  in  his  arms — we  were  suffi- 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

ciently  screened  from  view — and  crush  his  lips  against 
mine  in  a  way  that  made  speech  impossible. 

Again  I  must  make  a  confession.  It  was  his  doing  that 
sort  of  thing  that  paralyzed  my  judgment.  You  will  blame 
me,  perhaps,  but,  oh,  reader,  have  you  any  idea  of  what 
it  is  never  to  have  had  a  man  wild  to  kiss  you  before? 
Never  before  to  have  had  any  one  adore  you?  Never  before 
to  have  been  the  greatest  of  all  blessings  to  so  much  as  the 
least  among  his  brethren  ?  The  experience  was  new  to  me. 
I  had  no  rule  of  thumb  by  which  to  measure  it.  I  could 
only  think  that  the  man  who  wanted  me  with  so  mad  a 
desire  must  have  me,  no  matter  what  reserves  I  might  have 
preferred  to  make  on  my  own  account. 

I  struggled,  however,  and  with  some  success.  For  the 
first  time  I  clearly  perceived  that  occasions  might  arise  in 
which,  between  love  and  marriage,  one  might  have  to  make 
a  distinction.  Ethel  Rossiter's  dictum  came  back  to  me: 
"  People  can't  go  about  marrying  every  one  they  love,  now 
can  they?"  It  came  to  me  as  a  terrible  possibility  that  I 
might  be  doomed  to  love  Hugh  all  my  life,  and  equally 
doomed  to  refuse  him.  If  I  didn't,  the  responsibilities 
would  be  "up  to  me."  If  besides  loving  him  I  were  to 
accept  him  and  marry  him,  it  would  be  for  me  to  see  that 
the  one  possible  condition  was  fulfilled.  I  should  have  to 
bring  J.  Howard  to  his  knees. 

When  he  got  breath  to  say  anything  it  was  with  a  mere 
hot  muttering  into  my  face,  as  he  held  me  with  my  head 
thrown  back: 

"I  know  what  I'm  doing,  little  Alix.  You  mustn't  ask 
me  to  count  the  cost.  The  cost  only  makes  you  the  more 
precious.  Since  I  have  to  suffer  for  you  I'll  suffer,  but  I'll 
never  give  you  up.  Do  you  take  me  for  a  fellow  who'd 
weigh  money  or  comfort  in  the  balances  with  you?" 

136 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

"  No,  Hugh,"  I  whispered.  His  embrace  was  enough  to 
strangle  me. 

"Well,  then,  never  ask  me  to  think  about  this  thing 
again.  I've  thought  all  I'm  going  to.  As  I  mean  to  get 
you  anyhow,  little  Alix,  you  may  as  well  promise  now,  this 
very  minute,  that  whatever  happens  you'll  be  my  wife." 

But  I  didn't  promise.  First  I  got  him  to  release  me  on 
the  ground  that  some  bathers,  after  a  dip  at  Eastons 
Beach,  were  going  by,  with  their  heads  on  a  level  with  our 
feet.  Then  I  asked  the  natural  question: 

"What  do  you  think  of  doing  now?" 

He  said  he  was  going  to  let  no  mushrooms  spring  in  his 
footsteps,  and  that  he  was  taking  a  morning  train  for  New 
York.  He  talked  about  bankers  and  brokers  and  moneyed 
things  in  general  in  a  way  I  couldn't  follow,  though  I 
could  see  that  in  spite  of  Cousin  Andrew  Brew's  rejection 
he  still  expected  great  things  of  himself.  Like  me,  he 
seemed  to  feel  that  there  was  a  faculty  for  conjuring 
money  in  the  very  name  of  Brokenshire.  Never  having 
known  what  it  was  to  be  without  as  much  money  as  he 
wanted,  never  having  been  given  to  suppose  that  such  an 
eventuality  could  come  to  pass,  it  was  perhaps  not 
strange  that  he  should  consider  his  power  of  commanding 
a  large  income  to  be  in  the  nature  of  things.  Bankers 
and  brokers  would  be  glad  to  have  him  as  their  associate 
from  the  mere  fact  that  he  was  his  father's  son. 

I  endeavored  to  throw  a  cup  of  cold  water  on  too  much 
certainty,  by  saying: 

"  But,  Hugh,  dear,  won't  you  have  to  begin  at  the  begin- 
ning? Wasn't  that  what  your  cousin  Andrew  Brew — ?" 

"Cousin  Andrew  Brew  is  an  ass.  He's  one  great  big 
Boston  stick-in-the-mud.  He  wouldn't  know  which  side 
his  bread  was  buttered  on,  not  if  it  was  buttered  on  both." 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

"Still,"  I  persisted,  "you'll  have  to  begin  at  the  begin- 
ning." 

"  Well,  I  shouldn't  be  the  first." 

"  No,  but  you  might  be  the  first  to  do  it  with  a  clog  round 
his  feet  in  the  shape  of  a  person  like  me.  How  many  years 
did  your  cousin  say — twenty  or  thirty,  wasn't  it?" 

"'R-rot,  little  Alix!"  He  brought  out  the  interjection 
with  a  contemptuous  roll.  "  It  might  be  twenty  or  thirty 
years  for  a  numskull  like  Duffers,  but  for  me !  There  are 
ways  by  which  a  man  who's  in  the  business  already,  as  you 
might  say,  goes  skimming  over  the  ground  the  common 
herd  have  to  tramp.  Look  at  the  gentlemen-rankers  in 
your  own  army.  They  enlist  as  privates,  and  in  two  or 
three  years  they're  in  the  officers'  mess  with  a  commission. 
That  comes  of  their  education  and — " 

"That's  often  true,  I  admit.  I've  known  of  several 
cases  in  my  own  experience.  But  even  two  or  three 
years — " 

"Wouldn't  you  wait  for  me?" 

He  asked  the  question  with  a  sharpness  that  gave  me 
something  like  a  stab. 

"Yes,  of  course,  Hugh,  if  I  promised  you.  And  yet  to 
bind  you  by  such  a  promise  doesn't  seem  to  me  fair." 

"I'll  take  care  of  that,"  he  declared,  manfully.  "As  a 
matter  of  fact,  when  father  sees  how  determined  I  am,  he'll 
only  be  too  happy  to  do  the  handsome  thing  and  come 
down  with  the  brass." 

"You  think  he's  bluffing  then?"  I  threw  some  convic- 
tion into  my  tone  as  I  added,  "  I  don't." 

"  He's  not  bluffing  to  his  own  knowledge;  but  he  is — 

"To  yours.  But  isn't  it  his  knowledge  that  we've  got 
to  go  by?  We  must  expect  the  worst,  even  if  we  hope  for 
the  best." 

138 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

"And  what  it  all  comes  to  is — " 

"Is  that  you're  facing  a  very  hard  time,  Hugh,  and  I 
don't  feel  that  I  can  accept  the  responsibility  of  encourag- 
ing you  to  do  it." 

"  But,  good  Lord,  Alix,  you're  not  encouraging  me.  It's 
the  other  way  round.  You're  a  perfect  wet  blanket; 
you're  an  ice-water  shower.  I'm  doing  this  thing  on  my 
own — " 

"You  know,  Hugh,  I've  seen  your  father  since  you  went 
away." 

His  face  brightened. 

"Good!  And  did  he  skew  any  signs  of  tacking  to  the 
wind?" 

"Not  a  bit.  He  said  you  would  be  ruined,  and  that  I 
should  ruin  you." 

"  The  deuce  you  will !  That's  where  he's  got  the  wrong 
number,  poor  old  dad!  I  hope  you  told  him  you  would 
marry  me — and  let  him  have  it  straight." 

I  made  no  reply  to  that,  going  on  to  tell  him  all  that  was 
said  as  to  bringing  J.  Howard  to  his  knees. 

He  roared  with  ironic  laughter. 

"You  did  have  the  gall!" 

"Then  you  think  they'll  never,  never  accept  me?" 

1 '  Not  that  way ;  not  beforehand. ' ' 

Hot  rage  rose  within  me,  against  him  and  them  and  this 
scorn  of  my  personality. 

"I  think  they  will." 

"  Not  on  your  life !  Dad  wouldn't  do  it,  not  if  I  was  on 
my  death-bed  and  needed  you  to  come  and  raise  me  up. 
Milly  is  the  only  one;  and  even  she  thinks  I'm  the  craziest 
idiot—" 

"Very  well,  then,  Hugh,"  I  said,  quickly;  "I'm  afraid 
we  must  consider  it  all — " 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

He  gathered  me  into  his  arms  as  he  had  done  before,  and 
once  more  stopped  my  protests.  Once  more,  too,  I  yielded 
to  this  masculine  argument. 

"For  you  and  me  there's  nothing  but  love,"  he  mur- 
mured, with  his  cheek  pressed  close  against  mine. 

"Oh  no,  Hugh,"  I  managed  to  say,  when  I  had  struggled 
free.  "There's  honor — and  perhaps  there's  pride."  It 
gave  some  relief  to  what  I  conceived  of  as  the  humiliation 
he  unconsciously  heaped  on  me  to  be  able  to  add:  "As  a 
matter  of  fact,  pride  and  honor,  in  me,  are  as  inseparable 
as  the  oxygen  and  hydrogen  that  go  to  make  up  water." 

He  was  obliged  to  leave  it  there,  since  he  had  no  more 
than  the  time  to  catch  his  train  for  New  York.  It  was, 
however,  the  sense  of  pride  and  honor  that  calmed  my 
nerves  when  Mrs.  Rossiter  asked  me  to  take  little  Gladys 
to  see  her  grandfather  in  the  afternoon.  I  had  done  it 
from  time  to  time  all  through  the  summer,  but  not  since 
Hugh  had  declared  his  love  for  me.  If  I  went  now,  I 
reasoned,  it  would  have  to  be  on  a  new  footing;  and  if  it 
was  on  a  new  footing  something  might  come  of  the  visit 
in  spite  of  my  fears. 

We  started  a  little  after  three,  as  Gladys  had  to  be  back 
in  time  for  her  early  supper  and  bed.  Chips,  the  wire- 
haired  terrier,  was  nominally  at  our  heels,  but  actually 
nosing  the  shrubbery  in  front  of  us,  or  scouring  the  lawns 
on  our  right  with  a  challenging  bark  to  any  of  his  kind  who 
might  be  within  earshot  to  come  down  and  contest  our 
passage. 

"Qu'-il  est  drole,  ce  Chips!  N'est~ce-pas,  mademoiselle?" 
Gladys  would  exclaim  from  time  to  time,  to  which  I 
would  make  some  suitable  and  instructive  rejoinder. 

Her  hand  was  in  mine;  her  eyes  as  they  laughed  up  at 
me  were  of  the  color  of  the  blue  convolvulus.  In  her  little 

140 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

smocked  liberty  silk,  with  a  leghorn  hat  trimmed  with  a 
wreath  of  tiny  roses,  she  made  me  yearn  for  that  bassinet 
between  which  and  myself  there  were  such  stormy  seas  to 
cross.  Everything  was  to  be  up  to  me.  That  was  the 
great  solemnity  from  which  my  mind  couldn't  get  away.  I 
was  to  be  the  David  to  confront  Goliath,  without  so  much 
as  a  sling  or  a  stone.  What  I  was  to  do,  and  how  I  was  to 
do  it,  I  knew  no  more  than  I  knew  of  commanding  an  army. 
I  could  only  take  my  stand  on  the  maxim  of  which  I  was 
making  a  foundation-stone.  I  went  so  far  as  to  believe 
that  if  I  did  right  more  right  would  unfold  itself.  It 
would  be  like  following  a  trail  through  a  difficult  wood,  a 
trail  of  which  you  observe  all  the  notches  and  steps  and 
signs,  sometimes  with  misgivings,  often  with  the  fear  that 
you're  astray,  but  on  which  a  moment  arrives  when  you 
see  with  delight  that  you're  coming  out  to  the  clearing. 
So  I  argued  as  I  prattled  with  Gladys  of  such  things  as 
were  in  sight,  of  ships  and  lobster-pots  and  little  dogs,  giv- 
ing her  a  new  word  as  occasion  served,  and  trying  to  keep 
my  mind  from  terrors  and  remote  anticipations. 

If  you  know  Newport  at  all  you  know  J.  Howard  Bro- 
kenshire's  place  in  the  neighborhood  of  Ochre  Point.  Any- 
one would  name  it  as  you  passed  by.  J.  Howard  didn't 
build  the  house;  he  bought  it  from  some  people  who,  it 
seemed,  hadn't  found  in  Newport  the  hospitality  of  which 
they  were  in  search.  It  is  gloomy  and  fortress-like,  as  if 
the  architect  had  planned  a  Palazzo  Strozzi  which  he 
hadn't  the  courage  to  carry  out.  That  it  is  incongruous 
with  its  surroundings  goes  without  saying;  but  then  it  is 
not  more  incongruous  than  anything  else.  I  had  been  long 
enough  in  America  to  see  that  for  the  man  who  could  build 
on  American  soil  a  house  which  would  have  some  relation 
to  its  site — as  they  can  do  in  Mexico,  and  as  we  do 

141 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

to  a  lesser  degree  in  Canada — fame  and  fortune  would 
be  in  store. 

The  entrance  hall  was  baronial  and  richly  Italianate. 
One's  first  impressions  were  of  gilding  and  red  damask. 
When  one's  eye  lighted  on  a  chest  or  settle,  one  could  smell 
the  stale  incense  in  a  Sienese  or  Pisan  sacristy.  At  the 
foot  of  the  great  stairway  ebony  slaves  held  gilded  torches 
in  which  were  electric  lights. 

Both  the  greyhounds  came  sniffing  to  meet  Chips,  and 
J.  Howard,  who  had  seen  our  approach  across  the  lawn  as 
we  came  from  the  Cliff  Walk,  emerged  from  the  library  to 
welcome  his  grandchild.  He  wore  a  suit  of  light-gray 
check,  and  was  as  imposingly  handsome  as  usual.  Gladys 
ran  to  greet  him  with  a  childish  cry.  On  seizing  her  he 
tossed  her  into  the  air  and  kissed  her. 

I  stood  in  the  middle  of  the  hall,  waiting.  On  previous 
occasions  I  had  done  the  same  thing;  but  then  I  had  not 
been,  as  one  might  say,  "introduced."  I  wondered  if  he 
would  acknowledge  the  introduction  now  or  give  me  a 
glance.  But  he  didn't.  Setting  Gladys  down,  he  took  her 
by  the  hand  and  returned  to  the  library. 

There  was  nothing  new  in  this.  It  had  happened  to  me 
before.  Left  like  an  empty  motor-car  till  there  was  need 
for  me  again,  I  had  sometimes  seated  myself  in  one  of  the 
huge  ecclesiastical  hall  chairs,  and  sometimes,  if  the  door 
chanced  to  be  open,  had  wandered  out  to  the  veranda. 
As  it  was  open  this  afternoon,  I  strolled  toward  the  glimpse 
of  green  lawn  and  the  sparkle  of  blue  sea  which  gleamed 
at  the  end  of  the  hall. 

It  was  a  possibility  I  had  foreseen.  Mrs.  Brokenshire 
might  be  there.  I  might  get  into  further  touch  with  the 
mystery  of  her  heart. 

Mrs.  Brokenshire  was  not  on  the  veranda,  but  Mrs. 
142 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

Billing  was.  She  was  seated  in  a  low  easy-chair,  reading  a 
French  novel,  and  had  been  smoking  cigarettes.  An  inlaid 
Oriental  taboret,  on  which  were  a  gold  cigarette-case  and 
ash-tray,  stood  beside  her  on  the  red-tiled  floor. 

I  had  forgotten  all  about  her,  as  seemingly  she  had  for- 
gotten about  me.  Her  surprise  in  seeing  me  appear  was 
not  greater  than  mine  at  finding  her.  Instinctively  she 
took  up  her  lorgnette,  which  was  lying  in  her  lap,  but  put 
it  down  without  using  it. 

"  So  it's  you,"  was  her  greeting. 

"I  beg  your  pardon,  madam,"  I  stammered,  respect- 
fully. ' '  I  didn't  know  there  was  anybody  here. ' ' 

I  was  about  to  withdraw  when  she  said,  commandingly: 

"Wait."  I  waited,  while  she  went  on:  "You're  a  little 
spitfire.  Did  you  know  it?" 

The  voice  was  harsh,  with  the  Quaker  drawl  I  have 
noticed  in  the  older  generation  of  Philadelphians;  but 
the  tone  wasn't  hostile.  On  the  contrary,  there  was 
something  in  it  that  invited  me  to  play  up.  I  played 
up,  demurely,  however,  saying,  with  a  more  emphatic 
respectfulness: 

"No,  madam;  I  didn't." 

"Well,  you  can  know  it  now.  Who  are  you?"  She 
made  the  quaint  little  gesture  with  which  I  have  seen 
English  princesses  summon  those  they  wished  to  talk  to. 
"  Come  over  here  where  I  can  get  a  look  at  you." 

I  moved  nearer,  but  she  didn't  ask  me  to  sit  down.  In 
answer  to  her  question  I  said,  simply,  "I'm  a  Canadian." 

"Oh,  a  Canadian!  That's  neither  fish,  flesh,  nor  fowl. 
It's  nothing." 

"No,  madam,  nothing  but  a  point  of  view." 

"What  do  you  mean  by  that?" 

I  repeated  something  of  my  father's : 

U3 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

"The  point  of  view  of  the  Englishman  who  understands 
America  or  of  the  American  who  understands  England,  as 
one  chooses  to  put  it.  The  Canadian  is  the  only  person 
who  does  both." 

"Oh,  indeed?  I'm  not  a  Canadian — and  yet  I  flatter 
myself  I  know  my  England  pretty  well." 

I  made  so  bold  as  to  smile  dimly. 

"Knowing  and  understanding  are  different  things, 
madam,  aren't  they  ?  The  Canadian  understands  America 
because  he  is  an  American;  he  understands  England  be- 
cause he  is  an  Englishman.  It's  only  of  him  that  that  can 
be  said.  You're  quite  right  when  you  label  him  a  point  of 
view  rather  than  a  citizen  or  a  subject." 

"  I  didn't  label  him  anything  of  the  kind.  I  don't  know 
anything  about  him,  and  I  don't  care.  What  are  you  be- 
sides being  a  Canadian?" 

"Nothing,  madam,"  I  said,  humbly. 

"  Nothing?    What  do  you  mean ?" 

"I  mean  that  there's  nothing  about  me,  that  I  have  or 
am,  that  I  don't  owe  to  my  country." 

"Oh,  stuff!  That's  the  way  we  used  to  talk  in  the 
United  States  forty  years  ago." 

"That's  the  way  we  talk  in  Canada  still,  madam — and 
feel." 

"Oh,  well,  you'll  get  over  it  as  we  did — when  you're 
more  of  a  people." 

"  Most  of  us  would  prefer  to  be  less  of  a  people,  and  not 
get  over  it." 

She  put  up  her  lorgnette. 

"Who  was  your  father?  What  sort  of  people  do  you 
come  from?" 

I  tried  to  bring  out  my  small  store  of  personal  facts,  but 
she  paid  them  no  attention.  When  I  said  that  my  father 

144 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

had  been  a  judge  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  Nova  Scotia  I 
might  have  been  calling  him  a  voivode  of  Montenegro  or 
the  president  of  a  zemstvo.  It  was  too  remote  from  her- 
self for  her  mind  to  take  in.  I  could  see  her,  however, 
examining  my  features,  my  hands,  my  dress,  with  the 
shrewd,  sharp  eyes  of  a  connoisseur  in  feminine  appearance. 

She  broke  into  the  midst  of  my  recital  with  the  words: 

"You  can't  be  in  love  with  Hugh  Brokenshire." 

Fearing  attack  from  an  unexpected  quarter,  I  clasped 
my  hands  with  some  emotion. 

"Oh,  but,  madam,  why  not?" 

The  reply  nearly  knocked  me  down. 

"Because  you're  too  sensible  a  girl.  He's  as  stupid  as 
an  owl." 

"He's  very  good  and  kind,"  was  all  I  could  find  to  say. 

"Yes;  but  what's  that?  A  girl  like  you  needs  more 
than  a  man  who's  only  good  and  kind.  Heavens  above, 
you'll  want  some  spice  in  your  life !" 

I  maintained  my  meek  air  as  I  said: 

"  I  could  do  without  the  spice  if  I  could  be  sure  of  bread 
and  butter." 

"Oh,  if  you're  marrying  for  a  home  let  me  tell  you  you 
won't  get  it.  Hugh  '11  never  be  able  to  offer  you  one,  and 
his  father  wouldn't  let  him  if  he  was." 

I  decided  to  be  bold. 

"But  you  heard  what  I  said  the  other  day,  madam.  I 
expect  his  father  to  come  round." 

She  uttered  the  queer  cackle  that  was  like  a  hen  when 
it  crows. 

"Oh,  you  do,  do  you?  You  don't  know  Howard  Bro- 
kenshire. You  could  break  him  more  easily  than  you 
could  bend  him — and  you  can't  break  him.  Good  Lord, 
girl,  I've  tried!" 

US 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

"But  I  haven't,"  I  returned,  quietly.  "Now  I'm  going 
to." 

"How?  What  with?  You  can't  try  if  you've  nothing 
to  try  on," 

"I  have." 

"For  Heaven's  sake — what?" 

I  was  going  to  say,  "Right " ;  but  I  knew  it  would  sound 
sententious.  I  had  been  sententious  enough  in  talking 
about  my  country.  Now  I  only  smiled. 

"You  must  let  me  keep  that  as  a  secret,"  I  answered, 
mildly. 

She  gave  herself  what  I  can  only  call  a  hitch  in  her  chair. 

"Then  may  I  be  there  to  see." 

" I  hope  you  may  be,  madam." 

"Oh,  I'll  come,"  she  cackled.  "Don't  worry  about 
that.  Just  let  me  know.  You'll  have  to  fight  like  the 
devil.  I  suppose  you  know  that." 

I  replied  that  I  did. 

"And  when  it's  all  over  you'll  have  got  nothing  for  your 
pains." 

"  I  shall  have  had  the  fight." 

She  looked  hard  at  me  before  speaking. 

"Good  girl!"  The  tone  was  that  of  a  spectator  who 
calls  out,  "Good  hit!"  or,  "Good  shot!"  at  a  game.  "If 
that's  all  you  want — " 

"No;  I  want  Hugh." 

"Then  I  hope  you  won't  get  him.  He's  as  big  a  dolt 
as  his  father,  and  that's  saying  a  great  deal."  Terrified,  I 
glanced  over  my  shoulder  at  the  house,  but  she  went  on 
imperturbably:  "Oh,  I  know  he's  in  there;  but  what  do  I 
care?  I'm  not  saying  anything  behind  his  back  that  I 
haven't  said  to  his  face.  He  doesn't  bear  me  any  malice, 
either,  I'll  say  that  for  him." 

146 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

"Nobody  could — "  I  began,  deferentially. 

' '  Nobody  had  better.  But  that's  neither  here  nor  there. 
All  I'm  telling  you  is  to  have  nothing  to  do  with  Hugh 
Brokenshire.  Never  mind  the  money;  what  you  need  is  a 
husband  with  brains.  Don't  I  know?  Haven't  I  been 
through  it?  My  husband  was  kind  and  good,  just  like 
Hugh  Brokenshire — and,  O  Lord!  The  sins  of  the  father 
are  visited  on  the  children,  too.  Look  at  my  daughter — 
pretty  as  a  picture  and  not  the  brains  of  a  white  mouse." 
She  nodded  at  me  fiercely.  "You're  my  kind.  I  can  see 
that.  Mind  what  I  say — and  be  off." 

She  turned  abruptly  to  her  book,  hitching  her  chair  a 
little  away  from  me.  Accepting  my  dismissal,  I  said  in 
the  third  person,  as  though  I  was  speaking  to  a  royalty: 

"  Madam  flatters  me  too  much;  but  I'm  glad  I  intruded, 
for  the  minute,  just  to  hear  her  say  that." 

I  had  made  my  courtesy  and  reached  the  door  leading 
inward  when  she  called  after  me : 

"You're  a  puss.     Do  you  know  it?" 

Not  feeling  it  necessary  to  respond  in  words,  I  merely 
smiled  over  my  shoulder  and  entered  the  house. 

In  one  of  the  big  chairs  I  waited  a  half-hour  before  J. 
Howard  came  out  of  the  library  with  his  grandchild.  He 
had  given  her  a  doll  which  she  hugged  in  her  left  arm,  while 
her  right  hand  was  in  his.  The  farewell  scene  was  pretty, 
and  took  place  in  the  middle  of  the  hall. 

"Now  run  away,"  he  said,  genially,  after  much  kissing 
and  petting,  "  and  give  my  love  to  mamma." 

He  might  have  been  shooing  the  sweet  thing  off  into  the 
air.  There  was  no  reference  whatever  to  any  one  to  take 
care  of  her.  His  eyes  rested  on  me,  but  only  as  they  rested 
on  the  wall  behind  me.  I  must  say  it  was  well  done — if 
one  has  to  do  that  sort  of  thing  at  all.  Feeling  myself,  as 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

his  regard  swept  me,  no  more  than  a  part  of  the  carved 
ecclesiastical  chair  to  which  I  stood  clinging,  I  wondered 
how  I  was  ever  to  bring  this  man  to  seeing  me. 

I  debated  the  question  inwardly  while  I  chatted  with 
Gladys  on  the  way  homeward.  I  was  obliged,  in  fact,  to 
brace  myself,  to  reason  it  out  again  that  right  was  self- 
propagating  and  wrong  necessarily  sterile.  Right  I  figured 
as  a  way  which  seemed  to  finish  in  a  blind  alley  or  cul-de- 
sac,  but  which,  as  one  neared  what  seemed  to  be  its  end, 
led  off  in  a  new  direction.  Nearing  the  end  of  that  there 
would  be  still  a  new  lead,  and  so  one  would  go  on. 

And,  sure  enough,  the  new  lead  came  within  the  next 
half-hour,  though  I  didn't  recognize  it  for  what  it  was  till 
afterward. 


CHAPTER  X 

AS  we  passed  the  Jack  Brokenshire  cottage,  Larry 
/~x  Strangways  and  Broke,  with  Noble,  the  collie, 
bounding  beside  them,  came  racing  down  the  lawn  to  over- 
take us.  It  was  natural  then  that  for  the  rest  of  the  way 
Chips  and  Noble  should  form  one  company,  Broke  and  his 
sister  another,  while  we  two  elders  strolled  along  behind 
them. 

It  was  the  hour  of  the  day  for  strolling.  The  mellow 
afternoon  light  was  of  the  kind  that  brings  something  new 
into  life,  something  we  should  be  glad  to  keep  if  we  knew 
how  to  catch  it.  It  was  not  merely  that  grass  and  leaf  and 
sea  had  a  shimmer  of  gold  on  them.  There  was  a  sweet 
enchantment  in  the  atmosphere,  a  poignant  wizardry,  a 
suggestion  of  emotions  both  higher  and  lower  than  those  of 
our  poor  mortal  scale.  They  made  one  reluctant  to  hurry 
one's  footsteps,  and  slow  in  the  return  to  that  sheerly  hu- 
man shelter  we  call  home.  All  along  the  path,  down 
among  the  rocks,  out  in  the  water,  up  on  the  lawns,  there 
were  people,  gentle  and  simple  alike,  who  lingered  and 
idled  and  paused  to  steep  themselves  in  this  magic. 

I  have  to  admit  that  we  followed  their  example.  Any- 
thing served  as  an  excuse  for  it,  the  dogs  and  the  children 
doing  the  same  from  a  similar  instinct.  I  got  the  impres- 
sion, too,  that  my  companion  was  less  in  the  throes  of  the 
discretion  we  had  imposed  upon  ourselves,  for  the  reason 

149 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

that  his  term  as  a  mere  educational  lackey  was  drawing  to  a. 
close.  It  had,  in  fact,  only  two  more  days  to  run.  Then 
August  would  come  an  and  he  would  desert  us. 

As  it  might  be  my  last  opportunity  to  surprise  him  into 
looking  at  me  in  the  way  Mrs.  Rossiter  had  observed,  I 
kept  my  eye  on  him  pretty  closely.  I  cannot  say  that 
I  detected  any  change  that  flattered  me.  Tall  and  straight 
and  splendidly  poised,  he  was  as  smilingly  impenetrable  as 
ever.  Like  Howard  Brokenshire,  he  betrayed  no  wound, 
even  if  I  had  inflicted  one.  It  was  a  little  exasperating. 
I  was  more  than  piqued. 

I  told  him  I  hadn't  heard  of  his  return  from  New  York 
and  asked  how  he  had  fared.  His  reply  was  enthusiastic. 
He  had  seen  Stacy  Grainger  and  was  eager  to  be  his 
henchman. 

"He's  got  that  about  him,"  he  declared,  "that  would 
make  anybody  glad  to  work  for  him." 

He  described  his  personal  appearance,  brawny  and  spare 
with  the  attributes  of  race.  It  was  an  odd  comment  on 
the  laws  of  heredity  that  his  grandfather  was  said  to  have 
begun  life  as  a  peddler,  and  yet  there  he  was  a  grand 
seigneur  to  the  finger-tips.  I  said  that  Howard  Broken- 
shire  was  also  a  grand  seigneur,  to  which  he  replied  that 
Howard  Brokenshire  was  a  monument.  American  con- 
ditions had  raised  him,  and  on  those  conditions  he  stood  as 
a  statue  on  its  pedestal.  His  position  was  so  secure  that 
all  he  had  to  do  was  stand.  It  was  for  this  reason  that  he 
could  be  so  dictatorial.  He  was  safely  fastened  to  his 
base;  nothing  short  of  seismic  convulsion  of  the  whole 
economic  world  was  likely  to  knock  him  off.  In  the  course 
of  that  conversation  I  learned  more  of  the  origin  of  the 
Brokenshire  fortunes  than  I  had  ever  before  heard. 

It  was  the  great-grandfather  of  J.  Howard  who  appar- 

150 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

ently  had  laid  the  foundation-stone  on  which  later  genera- 
tions built  so  well.  That  patriarch,  so  I  understood,  had 
been  a  farmer  in  the  Connecticut  Valley.  His  method  of 
finance  was  no  more  esoteric  than  that  of  lending  out  small 
sums  of  money  at  a  high  rate  of  interest.  Occasionally  he 
took  mortgages  on  his  neighbors'  farms,  with  the  result 
that  he  became  in  time  something  of  a  landed  proprietor. 
When  the  suburbs  of  a  city  had  spread  over  one  of  the 
possessions  thus  acquired,  the  foundation-stone  to  which  I 
have  referred  might  have  been  considered  well  and  truly 
laid. 

About  the  year  1830,  his  son  migrated  to  New  York. 
The  firm  of  Meek  &  Brokenshire,  of  which  the  fame  was 
to  go  through  two  continents,  was  founded  when  Van 
Buren  was  in  the  presidential  seat  and  Victoria  just  coming 
to  the  throne.  It  seems  there  was  a  Meek  in  those  days, 
though  at  the  time  of  which  I  am  writing  nothing  remained 
of  him  but  a  syllable. 

It  was  after  the  Civil  War,  however,  when  the  grandson 
of  the  Connecticut  Valley  veteran  was  in  power,  that  the 
house  of  Meek  &  Brokenshire  forged  to  the  front  rank 
among  financial  agencies.  It  formed  European  affiliations. 
It  became  the  financial  representative  of  a  great  European 
power.  John  H.  Brokenshire,  whose  name  was  distin- 
guished from  that  of  his  more  famous  son  only  by  a  distri- 
bution of  initials,  had  a  house  at  Hyde  Park  Corner  as  well 
as  one  in  New  York.  He  was  the  first  American  banker 
to  become  something  of  an  international  magnate.  The 
development  of  his  country  made  him  so.  With  the 
vexed  questions  of  slavery  and  secession  settled,  with 
the  phenomenal  expansion  of  the  West,  with  the  freer 
uses  of  steam  and  electricity,  with  the  tightening  of 
bonds  between  the  two  hemispheres,  that  pedestal  was 

ii  iS1 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

being  raised  on  which  J.  Howard  was  to  pose  with 
such  decorative  effectiveness. 

His  posing  began  on  his  father's  death  in  the  year  1898. 
Up  to  that  time  he  had  represented  the  house  in  England, 
the  post  being  occupied  now  by  his  younger  brother  James. 
Polished  manners,  a  splendid  appearance,  and  an  authori- 
tative air  imported  to  New  York  a  touch  of  the  Court  of 
St.  James's.  Mrs.  Billing  had  called  him  a  dolt.  Per- 
haps he  was  one.  If  so  he  was  a  dolt  raised  up  and  sus- 
tained by  all  that  was  powerful  in  the  United  States.  It 
was  with  these  vast  influences  rather  than  with  the  man 
himself  that,  as  Larry  Strangways  talked,  I  began  to  see  I 
was  in  conflict. 

In  Stacy  Grainger,  I  gathered,  the  contemporaneous 
development  of  the  country  had  produced  something 
different,  just  as  the  same  piece  of  ground  will  grow  an 
oak  or  a  rose-bush,  according  to  the  seed.  People  with 
a  taste  for  social  antithesis  called  him  the  grandson  of  a 
peddler.  Mr.  Strangways  considered  this  description  be- 
low the  level  of  the  ancestral  Grainger's  occupation.  In 
the  days  of  scattered  farms  and  difficult  communications 
throughout  Illinois,  Wisconsin,  and  Minnesota  he  might 
better  have  been  termed  an  itinerant  merchant.  He  was 
the  traveling  salesman  who  delivered  the  goods.  His 
journeys  being  made  by  river  boats  and  ox-teams,  he  began 
to  see  the  necessity  of  steam.  He  was  of  the  group  who 
projected  the  system  of  railways,  some  of  which  failed  and 
some  of  which  succeeded,  through  the  regions  west  of  Lake 
Superior.  Later  he  forsook  the  highways  for  a  more 
feverish  life  in  the  incipient  Chicago.  His  wandering 
years  having  given  him  an  idea  of  the  value  of  this  focal 
point,  he  put  his  savings  into  land.  The  phoenix  rise  of  the 
city  after  the  great  fire  made  him  a  man  of  some  wealth. 

152 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

Out  of  the  financial  crash  of  1873  he  oecame  richer.  His 
son  grew  richer  still  on  the  panic  of  1893,  when  he,  too, 
descended  on  New  York.  It  was  he  who  became  a  power 
on  the  Stock  Exchange  and  bought  the  big  house  with 
which  parts  of  my  narrative  will  have  to  do. 

All  I  want  to  say  now  is  that  as  I  strolled  with  Larry 
Strangways  along  that  sunny  walk,  and  as  he  ran  on  about 
Brokenshires  and  Graingers,  I  jpot  my  first  bit  of  insight 
into  the  immense  American  romance  which  the  nineteenth 
century  unfolded.  I  saw  it  was  romance,  gigantic,  race- 
wide.  For  the  first  time  in  my  life  I  realized  that  there 
were  other  tales  to  make  men  proud  besides  the  story  of  the 
British  Empire. 

I  could  see  that  Larry  Strangways  was  proud — proud 
and  anxious.  I  had  never  seen  this  side  of  him  before. 
Pride  was  in  the  way  in  which  he  held  his  fine  young  head ; 
there  was  anxiety  in  his  tone,  and  now  and  then  in  the 
flash  of  his  eye,  in  spite  of  his  efforts  not  to  be  too  serious. 

It  was  about  the  country  that  he  talked — its  growth,  its 
vastness.  Even  as  recently  as  when  he  was  a  boy  it  was 
still  a  manageable  thing,  with  a  population  reckoned  at 
no  more  than  seventy  or  eighty  millions.  It  had  been 
homogeneous  in  spirit  if  not  in  blood,  and  those  who  had 
come  from  other  lands,  and  been  welcomed  and  adopted, 
accepted  their  new  situation  with  some  gratitude.  Patri- 
otism was  still  a  word  with  a  meaning,  and  if  it  now  and 
then  became  spread-eagleism  it  was  only  as  the  waves 
when  thrown  too  far  inland  become  froth.  The  wave  was 
the  thing  and  it  hadn't  ebbed. 

"And  do  you  think  it  has  ebbed  now?"  I  asked. 

He  didn't  answer  this  question  directly. 

"We're  becoming  colossal.  We  shall  soon  count  our 
people  by  the  hundred  million  and  more.  Of  these  rela- 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

tively  few  will  have  got  our  ideals.  Some  will  reject 
them.  There  are  mutterings  already  of  other  standards  to 
which  we  must  be  taught  to  conform.  Some  of  our  own 
best  people  of  pure  Anglo-Saxon  descent  are  losing  heart 
and  renouncing  and  denouncing  the  democratic  tradition, 
though  they've  nothing  to  put  in  its  place.  And  we're 
growing  so  huge — with  a  hugeness  that  threatens  to  make 
us  lethargic." 

I  tried  to  be  encouraging. 

"You  seem  to  me  anything  but  that." 

"National  lethargy  can  easily  exist  side  by  side  with 
individual  energy.  Take  China,  for  instance.  There  are 
few  peoples  in  the  world  more  individually  diligent  than 
the  Chinese;  and  yet  when  it  comes  to  national  stirring  it's 
a  country  as  difficult  to  move  as  an  unwieldy  overfed 
giant.  It's  flabby  and  nerveless  and  inert.  It's  spread 
half  over  Asia,  and  it  has  the  largest  and  most  industrious 
population  in  the  world;  and  yet  it's  a  congeries  of  inner 
weaknesses,  and  a  prey  to  any  one  who  chooses  to  attack 
it." 

"And  you  think  this  country  is  on  the  way  to  being  the 
China  of  the  west?" 

"I  don't  say  on  the  way.  There's  danger  of  it.  In 
proportion  as  we  too  become  unwieldy  and  overfed,  the 
circulation  of  that  national  impulse  which  is  like  blood 
grows  slower.  The  elephant  is  a  heavily  moving  beast  in 
comparison  with  the  lion." 

"But  it's  the  more  intelligent,"  I  argued,  still  with  a 
disposition  to  be  encouraging. 

"Intelligence  won't  save  it  when  the  lion  leaps  on  its 
back." 

"Then  what  will?" 

"  That's  what  we  want  to  find  out." 

154 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

' '  And  how  are  you  going  to  do  it  ?" 

"By  men.  We've  come  to  a  time  when  the  country  is 
going  to  need  stronger  men  than  it  ever  had,  and  m»re  of 
them." 

I  suppose  it  is  because  I  am  a  woman  that  I  have  to 
bring  all  questions  to  the  personal. 

"And  is  your  Stacy  Grainger  going  to  be  one?" 

He  walked  on  a  few  paces  without  replying,  his  head  in 
the  air. 

"No,"  he  said,  at  last,  "I  don't  think  so.  He's  got  a 
weakness." 

"What  kind  of  weakness?" 

"I'm  not  going  to  tell  you,"  he  laughed.  " It's  enough 
to  say  that  it's  one  which  I  think  will  put  him  out  of  com- 
mission for  the  job."  He  gave  me  some  inkling,  however, 
of  what  he  meant  when  he  added:  "The  country's  coming 
to  a  place  where  it  will  need  disinterested  men,  and  whole- 
hearted men,  and  clean-hearted  men,  if  it's  going  to  pull 
through.  It's  extraordinary  how  deficient  we've  been  in 
leaders  who've  had  any  of  these  characteristics,  to  say 
nothing  of  all  three." 

" Is  the  United  States  singular  in  that?" 

He  spoke  in  a  half-jesting  tone,  probably  to  hide  the 
fact  that  he  was  so  much  in  earnest. 

"No;  perhaps  not.  But  it's  got  to  have  them  if  it's 
going  to  be  saved.  Moreover,"  he  went  on,  "it  must  find 
them  among  the  young  men.  The  older  men  are  all  steeped 
and  branded  and  tarred  and  feathered  with  the  mate- 
rialism of  the  nineteenth  century.  They're  perfectly 
sodden.  They  see  no  patriotism  except  in  loyalty  to  a 
political  machine;  and  no  loyalty  to  a  political  machine 
except  for  what  they  can  get  out  of  it.  From  our  Presi- 
dents down  most  of  them  will  sacrifice  any  law  of  right  to 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

the  good  of  a  party.  They  don't  realize  that  nine  times 
out  of  ten  the  good  of  a  party  is  the  evil  of  the  common 
weal;  and  our  older  men  will  never  learn  the  fact.  If  we 
can't  wake  the  younger  men,  we're  done  for." 

"And  are  you  going  to  wake  them?" 

"I'm  going  to  be  awake  myself.  That's  all  I  can  be 
responsible  for.  If  I  can  find  another  fellow  who's  awake 
I'll  follow  him." 

"Why  not  lead  him?    I  should  think  you  could." 

He  turned  round  on  me.  I  shall  never  forget  the  gleam 
in  his  eye. 

"No  one  is  ever  going  to  get  away  with  this  thing  who 
thinks  of  leadership.  There  are  times  in  the  history  of 
countries  when  men  are  called  on  to  give  up  everything  and 
be  true  to  an  ideal.  I  believe  that  time  is  approaching. 
It  may  come  into  Europe  in  one  way  and  to  America  in 
another;  but  it's  coming  to  us  all.  There'll  be  a  call  for — 
for — "  he  hesitated  at  the  word,  uttering  it  only  with  an 
apologetic  laugh — "for  consecration." 

I  was  curious. 

"And  what  do  you  mean  by  that — by  consecration?" 

He  reflected  before  answering. 

"I  suppose  I  mean  knowing  what  this  country  stands 
for,  and  being  true  to  it  oneself  through  thick  and  thin. 
There'll  be  thin  and  there'll  be  thick — plenty  of  them 
both — but  it  will  be  a  question  of  the  value  of  the  individ- 
ual. If  there  had  been  ten  righteous  men  in  Sodom  and 
Gomorrah,  they  wouldn't  have  been  destroyed.  I  take 
that  as  a  kind  of  figure.  A  handful  of  disinterested,  whole- 
hearted, clean-hearted,  and  perhaps  I  ought  to  add  stout- 
hearted Americans,  who  know  what  they  believe  and  live 
by  it,  will  hold  the  fort  against  all  efforts,  within  and  with- 
out, to  pull  it  down."  He  paused  in  his  walk,  obliging  me 

156 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

to  do  the  same.  "I've  been  thinking  a  good  deal,"  lie 
smiled,  "  during  the  past  few  weeks  of  your  law  of  Right — 
with  a  capital.  I  laughed  at  it  when  you  first  spoke  of 
it—" 

"Oh,  hardly  that,"  I  interposed. 

"But  I've  come  to  believe  that  it  will  work." 

"I'm  so  glad." 

"  In  fact,  it's  the  only  thing  that  will  work." 

"Exactly,"  I  exclaimed,  enthusiastically. 

"We  must  stand  by  it,  we  younger  men,  just  as  the 
younger  men  of  the  late  fifties  stood  by  the  principles 
represented  by  Lincoln.  I  believe  in  my  heart  that  the 
need  is  going  to  be  greater  for  us  than  it  was  for  them,  and 
if  we  don't  respond  to  it,  then  may  the  Lord  hare  mercy 
on  our  souls." 

I  give  this  scrap  of  conversation  because  it  introduced 
a  new  note  into  my  knowledge  of  Americans.  I  had  not 
supposed  that  any  Americans  felt  like  that.  In  the  Ros- 
siter  circle  I  never  saw  anything  but  an  immense  self- 
satisfaction.  Money  and  what  money  could  do  was,  I  am 
sure,  the  only  topic  of  their  thought.  Their  ideas  of  posi- 
tion and  privilege  were  all  spuriously  European.  Nothing 
was  indigenous.  Except  for  their  sense  of  money,  their 
aims  were  as  foreign  to  the  soil  as  their  pictures,  their 
tapestries,  their  furniture,  and  their  clothes.  Even 
stranger  I  found  the  imitation  of  Europe  in  tastes  which 
Europe  was  daily  giving  up.  But  in  Larry  Strangways,  it 
seemed  to  me,  I  found  something  native,  something  that 
really  lived  and  cared.  It  caused  me  to  look  at  him  with  a 
new  interest. 

His  jesting  tone  allowed  me  to  take  my  cue  in  the  same 
vein. 

"I'm  tremendously  flattered,  Mr.  Strangways,  that  you 

157 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

should  have  found  anything  in  my  ideas  that  could  be 
turned  to  good  account." 

He  laughed  shortly  and  rather  hardly. 

"Oh,  if  it  was  only  that!" 

It  was  another  of  the  things  I  wished  he  hadn't  said, 
but  with  the  words  he  started  on  again,  walking  so  fast  for 
a  few  paces  that  I  made  no  effort  to  keep  up  with  him. 
When  he  waited  till  I  rejoined  him  we  fell  again  to  talking 
of  Stacy  Grainger.  At  the  first  opportunity  I  asked  the 
question  that  was  chiefly  on  my  mind. 

"Wasn't  there  something  at  one  time  between  him  and 
Mrs.  Brokenshire?" 

He  marched  on,  with  head  erect. 

"I  believe  so,"  he  admitted,  reluctantly,  but  not  till 
some  seconds  had  passed. 

"There  was  a  big  fight,  wasn't  there,"  I  persisted,  "be- 
tween him  and  Mr.  Brokenshire — over  Editha  Billing — on 
the  Stock  Exchange — or  something  like  that?" 

Again  he  allowed  some  seconds  to  go  by. 

"So  I've  heard." 

I  fished  out  of  my  memory  such  tag  ends  of  gossip  as  had 
reached  me,  I  could  hardly  tell  from  where. 

"Didn't  Mr.  Brokenshire  attack  his  interests — railways 
and  steel  and  things — and  nearly  ruin  him?" 

"  I  believe  there  was  some  such  talk." 

I  admired  the  way  in  which  he  refused  to  lend  himself  to 
the  spread  of  the  legend;  but  I  insisted  on  going  on, 
because  the  idea  of  this  conflict  of  modern  giants,  with  a 
beautiful  maiden  as  the  prize,  appealed  to  my  imagination. 

"And  didn't  old  Mrs.  Billing  shift  round  all  of  a  sudden 
from  the  man  who  seemed  to  be  going  under  to — ?" 

He  cut  the  subject  short  by  giving  it  another  twist. 

"Grainger's  been  unlucky.  His  whole  family  have 

158 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

been  unlucky.  It's  an  instance  of  tragedy  haunting  a 
race  such  as  one  reads  of  in  mythology  and  now  and  then 
in  modern  history — the  house  of  Atreus,  for  example,  and 
the  Stuarts,  and  the  Hapsburgs,  and  so  on." 

I  questioned  him  as  to  this,  only  to  learn  of  a  series  of 
accidents, suicides,  and  sudden  deaths,  leaving  Stacy  as  the 
last  of  his  line,  lonely  and  picturesque. 

At  the  foot  of  the  steps  leading  up  to  the  Rossiter  lawn 
Larry  Strangways  paused  again.  The  children  and  dogs 
having  preceded  us  and  being  safe  on  their  own  grounds, 
we  could  consider  them  off  our  minds. 

"What  do  you  know  about  old  books?"  he  asked, 
suddenly. 

The  question  took  me  so  much  by  surprise  that  I  could 
only  say: 

"What  makes  you  think  I  know  anything?" 

"Didn't  your  father  have  a  library  full  of  them?  And 
didn't  you  catalogue  them  and  sell  them  in  London?" 

I  admitted  this,  but  added  that  even  that  undertaking 
had  left  me  very  ignorant  of  the  subject. 

"Yes;  but  it's  a  beginning.  If  you  know  the  Greek  or 
Russian  alphabet  it's  a  very  good  point  from  which  to  go 
on  and  learn  the  language." 

"But  why  should  I  learn  that  language?" 

"Because  I  know  a  man  who's  going  to  have  a  vacancy 
soon  for  a  librarian.  It's  a  private  library,  rather  a 
famous  one  in  New  York,  and  the  young  lady  at  present  in 
command  is  leaving  to  be  married." 

I  smiled  pleasantly. 

' '  Yes ;  but  what  has  that  got  to  do  with  me  ?" 

"Didn't  I  tell  you  I  was  going  to  look  you  up  another 
job?" 

"  Oh !    And  so  you've  looked  me  up  this !' ' 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

"No,  I  didn't.  It  looked  me  up.  The  owner  of  the 
library  mentioned  the  fact  as  a  great  bore.  It  was  his 
father  who  made  the  collection  in  the  days  of  the  first  great 
American  splurge.  Stacy  Grainger  has  added  a  rug  or  a 
Chinese  jar  from  time  to  time,  but  he  doesn't  give  a  hang 
for  the  lot." 

"Oh,  so  it's  his." 

"Yes;  it's  his.  He  says  he  feels  inclined  to  shut  the 
place  up;  but  I  told  him  it  was  a  pity  to  do  that  since  I 
knew  the  very  young  lady  for  the  post." 

I  dropped  the  subject  there,  because  of  a  new  inspiration. 

"If  Mr.  Grainger  has  places  at  his  command,  couldn't 
he  do  something  for  poor  Hugh?" 

4 '  Why  poor  Hugh  ?     I  thought  he  was — ' ' 

I  gave  him  a  brief  account  of  the  fiasco  in  Boston,  ven- 
turing to  betray  Hugh's  confidence  for  the  sake  of  some 
possible  advantage.  Mr.  Strangways  only  shrugged  his 
shoulders. 

"Of  course,"  he  said.  "What  could  you  expect?"  I 
was  sure  he  was  looking  down  on  me  with  the  expression 
Mrs.  Rossiter  had  detected,  though  I  didn't  dare  to  lift  an 
eye  to  catch  him  in  the  act.  "You  really  mean  to  marry 
him?" 

"  Mean  to  many  him  is  not  the  term,"  I  answered,  with 
the  decision  which  I  felt  the  situation  called  for.  "  I  mean 
to  marry  him  only — on  conditions." 

"Oh,  on  conditions!    What  kind  of  conditions?" 

I  named  them  to  him  as  I  had  named  them  to  others. 
First  that  Hugh  should  become  independent. 

He  repeated  his  short,  hard  laugh. 

"I  don't  believe  you  had  better  bank  on  that." 

"Perhaps  not,"  I  admitted.  "But  I've  another  string 
to  my  bow.  His  family  may  come  and  ask  me." 

1 60 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

He  almost  shouted. 

"Never!" 

It  was  the  tone  they  all  took,  and  which  especially 
enraged  me.  I  kept  my  voice  steady,  however,  as  I  said, 
"  That  remains  to  be  seen." 

"It  doesn't  remain  to  be  seen,  because  I  can  tell  you 
now  that  they  won't." 

"And  I  can  tell  you  now  that  they  will,"  I  said,  with  an 
assurance  that,  on  the  surface  at  least,  was  quite  as  strong 
as  his  own. 

He  laughed  again,  more  shortly,  more  hardly. 

"Oh,  well!" 

The  laugh  ended  in  a  kind  of  sigh.  I  noted  the  sigh  as  I 
noted  the  laugh,  and  their  relation  to  each  other.  Both 
reached  me,  touching  something  within  me  that  had  never 
yet  been  stirred.  Physically  it  was  like  the  prick  of  the 
spur  to  a  spirited  animal,  it  sent  me  bounding  up  the 
steps.  I  was  off  as  from  a  danger;  and  though  I  would 
have  given  much  to  see  the  expression  with  which  he  stood 
gazing  after  me,  I  would  not  permit  myself  so  much  as  to 
glance  back. 


CHAPTER  XI 

THE  steps  by  which  I  came  to  be  Stacy  Grainger's 
librarian  could  easily  be  traced,  though  to  do  so  with 
much  detail  would  be  tedious. 

After  Hugh's  departure  for  New  York  my  position  with 
Mrs.  Rossiter  soon  became  untenable.  The  reports  that 
reached  Newport  of  the  young  man's  doings  in  the  city 
were  not  merely  galling  to  the  family  pride,  but  maddening 
to  his  father's  sense  of  pre-eminence.  Hugh  was  actually 
going  from  door  to  door,  as  you  might  say,  in  Wall  Street 
and  Broad  Street,  only  to  be  turned  away. 

"He's  making  the  most  awful  fool  of  himself,"  Mrs. 
Rossiter  informed  me  one  morning,  "and  papa's  growing 
furious.  Jim  writes  that  every  one  is  laughing  at  him,  and, 
of  course,  they  know  it's  all  about  some  girl." 

I  held  my  tongue  at  this.  That  they  should  be  laughing 
at  poor  Hugh  was  a  new  example  of  the  world's  falsity. 
His  letters  to  me  were  only  a  record  of  half-promises  and 
fair  speeches,  but  he  found  every  one  of  them  encouraging. 
Nowhere  had  he  met  with  the  brutal  treatment  he  had 
received  at  the  hands  of  Cousin  Andrew  Brew.  The  min- 
ute his  card  went  in  to  never  so  great  a  banker  or  broker, 
he  was  received  with  a  welcome.  If  no  one  had  just  the 
right  thing  to  offer  him,  no  one  had  turned  him  down.  It 
was  explained  to  him  that  it  was  largely  a  matter  of  the 
off  season — for  his  purpose  August  was  the  worst  month  in 

162 


THE    HIG~H    HEART 

the  year — and  of  the  lack  of  an  opening  which  it  would 
be  worth  the  while  of  a  man  of  his  quality  to  fill.  Later, 
perhaps!  The  two  words,  courteously  spoken,  gave 
the  gist  of  all  his  interviews.  He  had  every  reason  to 
feel  satisfied. 

In  the  mean  while  he  was  comfortable  at  his  club — his 
cash  in  hand  would  hold  out  to  Christmas  and  beyond — 
and  in  the  matter  of  energy,  he  wrote,  not  a  mushroom  was 
springing  in  his  tracks.  He  was  on  the  job  early  and  late, 
day  in  and  day  out.  The  off  season  which  was  obviously 
a  disadvantage  in  some  respects  had  its  merits  in  others, 
since  it  would  be  known,  when  things  began  to  look  up 
again,  that  he  was  available  for  any  big  house  that  could 
get  him.  That  there  would  be  competition  in  this  respect 
every  one  had  given  him  to  understand.  All  this  he  told 
me  in  letters  as  full  of  love  as  they  were  of  business,  written 
in  a  great,  sprawling,  unformed,  boyish  hand,  and  with  an 
occasional  bit  of  phonetic  spelling  which  made  his  pro- 
testations the  more  touching. 

But  Jim  Rossiter's  sources  of  information  were  of 
another  kind. 

"Get  your  father  to  do  something  to  stop  him,"  he 
wrote  to  his  wife.  "He's  making  the  whole  house  of 
Meek  &  Brokenshire  a  laughing-stock." 

There  came,  in  fact,  a  Saturday  when  Mr.  Rossiter  actu- 
ally appeared  for  the  week-end. 

"He  wouldn't  be  doing  that,"  Mrs.  Rossiter  almost 
sobbed  to  me,  on  receipt  of  the  telegram  announcing  his 
approach,  "unless  things  were  pretty  bad." 

Though  I  dreaded  his  coming,  I  was  speedily  reassured. 
Whatever  the  object  of  Mr.  Rossiter's  visit,  I,  in  my  own 
person,  had  nothing  to  do  with  it.  On  the  afternoon  of  his 
arrival  he  came  out  to  where  I  was  knocking  the  croquet 

163 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

balls  about  with  Gladys  on  the  lawn,  and  was  as  polite  as 
he  had  been  through  the  winter  in  New  York.  He  was 
always  polite  even  to  the  maids,  to  whom  he  scrupulously 
said  good-morning.  His  wistful  desire  to  be  liked  by 
every  one  was  inspired  by  the  same  sort  of  impulse  as  the 
jovial  bonhomie  of  Cousin  Andrew  Brew.  He  was  a  little, 
weazened  man,  with  face  and  legs  like  a  jockey,  which  I 
think  he  would  gladly  have  been.  Racin'  and  ridin',  as  he 
called  them,  were  the  amusements  in  which  he  found  most 
pleasure,  while  his  health  was  his  chief  preoccupation. 
He  took  pills  before  and  after  all  his  meals  and  a  variety  of 
medicinal  waters.  During  the  winter  under  his  roof  my 
own  conversation  with  him  had  been  entirely  on  the  score 
of  his  complaints. 

In  just  the  same  way  he  sauntered  up  now.  He  talked 
of  his  lack  of  appetite  and  the  beastly  cooking  at  clubs. 
Expecting  him  to  broach  the  subject  of  Hugh,  I  got  myself 
ready;  but  he  did  nothing  of  the  kind.  He  was  merely 
amiable  and,  as  far  as  I  could  judge,  indifferent.  Within 
ten  minutes  he  had  sauntered  away  again,  leading  Gladys 
by  the  hand. 

I  saw  then  that  in  common  with  the  other  Brokenshires 
he  considered  that  I  didn't  count.  Hugh  could  be  dealt 
with  independently  of  me.  So  long  as  I  was  useful  to  his 
wife,  there  was  no  reason  why  I  should  be  disturbed.  I 
was  too  light  a  thing  to  be  weighed  in  their  balances. 

Next  day  there  was  a  grand  family  council  and  on  Mon- 
day Jack  Brokenshire  accompanied  his  brother-in-law  to 
New  York.  Hugh  wrote  me  of  their  threats  and  flatteries, 
their  beseechings  and  cajoleries.  He  was  to  come  to  his 
senses;  he  was  to  be  decent  to  his  father;  he  was  to  quit 
being  a  fool.  I  gathered  that  for  forty-eight  hours  they 
had  put  him  through  most  of  the  tortures  known  to 

164 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

fraternal  inquisition;  but  he  wrote  me  he  would  bear  it  all 
and  more,  for  the  sake  of  winning  me. 

Nor  would  he  allow  them  to  have  everything  their  own 
way.  That  he  wrote  me,  too.  When  it  came  to  the  ques- 
tion of  marriage  he  bade  them  look  at  home.  Each  of 
them  was  an  instance  of  what  J.  Howard  could  do  in  the 
matrimonial  line,  and  what  a  mess  he  and  they  had  made  of 
it !  He  asked  Jack  in  so  many  words  how  much  he  would 
have  been  in  love  with  Pauline  Gray  if  she  hadn't  had  a  big 
fortune,  and,  now  that  he  had  got  her  money  and  her,  how 
true  he  was  to  his  compact.  Who  were  Trixie  Delorme 
and  Baby  Bevan,  he  demanded,  with  a  knowledge  of 
Jack's  affairs  which  compelled  the  elder  brother  to  tell 
him  to  mind  his  own  business. 

Hugh  laughed  scornfully  at  that. 

"I  can  mind  my  own  business,  Jack,  and  still  keep  an 
eye  on  yours,  seeing  that  you  and  Pauline  are  the  talk  of 
the  town.  If  she  doesn't  divorce  you  within  the  next  five 
years,  it  will  be  because  you've  already  divorced  her. 
Even  that  won't  be  as  big  a  scandal  as  your  going  on 
living  together." 

Mr.  Rossiter  intervened  on  this  and  did  his  best  to  calm 
the  younger  brother  down: 

"Ah,  cut  that  out  now,  Hugh!" 

But  Hugh  rounded  on  him,  shaking  off  the  hand  that 
had  been  laid  on  his  arm. 

"You're  a  nice  one,  Jim,  to  come  with  your  mealy- 
mouthed  talk  to  me.  Look  at  Ethel!  If  I'd  married  a 
woman  as  you  married  her — or  if  I'd  been  married  as  she 
married  you — just  because  your  father  was  a  partner  in 
Meek  &  Brokenshire  and  it  was  well  to  keep  the  money  in 
the  family — if  I'd  done  that  I'd  shut  up.  I'd  consider 
myself  too  low-down  a  cur  to  be  kicked.  What  kind  of  a 

165 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

wife  is  Ethel  to  you?  What  kind  of  a  husband  are  you  to 
her?  What  kind  of  a  father  do  you  make  to  the  children 
who  hardly  know  you  by  sight?  And  now,  just  because 
I'm  trying  to  be  a  man,  and  decent,  and  true  to  the  girl  I 
love,  you  come  sneaking  round  to  tell  me  she's  not  good 
enough.  What  do  I  care  whether  she's  good  enough  or 
not,  so  long  as  she  isn't  like  Ethel  and  Pauline?  You  can 
go  back  and  tell  them  so." 

Jack  Brokenshire  came  back,  but  I  think  he  kept  this 
confidence  to  himself.  What  he  told,  however,  was 
enough  to  produce  a  good  deal  of  gloom  in  the  family. 
Though  Mrs.  Rossiter  didn't  cease  to  be  nice  to  me  in  her 
non-committal  way,  I  began  to  reason  that  there  were 
limits  even  to  indifference.  I  had  made  up  ray  mind  to  go 
and  was  working  out  some  practical  way  of  going,  when 
an  incident  hastened  my  departure. 

Doing  an  errand  one  day  for  Mrs.  Rossiter  in  the  shop- 
ping part  of  Bellevue  Avenue,  I  saw  old  Mrs.  Billing  going 
by  in  an  open  motor  landaulette.  She  signaled  to  me  to 
stop,  and,  poking  the  chauffeur  in  the  back  through  the 
open  window,  made  him  draw  up  at  the  curb. 

"I've  got  something  for  you,"  she  said,  without  other 
form  of  greeting.  She  began  to  stir  things  round  in  her 
bag.  "I  thought  you'd  like  it.  I've  been  carrying  it 
about  with  me  for  the  last  three  or  four  days — ever  since 
Jack  Brokenshire  got  back  from  New  York.  Where  the 
dickens  is  the  thing?  Ah,  here!"  She  handed  me  out  a 
crumpled  card.  "That's  all,  Antoine,"  she  continued  to 
the  man.  "  Drive  on." 

I  was  left  with  the  card  in  my  hand,  finding  it  to  be  an 
advertisement  for  the  Hotel  Mary  Chilton,  a  place  of  enter- 
tainment for  women  alone,  in  a  central  and  reputable  part 
of  New  York. 

166 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

By  the  time  I  got  back  to  Mrs.  Rossiter's  I  had  solved 
what  had  at  first  been  a  puzzle,  and,  having  reported 
on  my  errand,  I  gave  my  resignation  verbally.  I  saw  then 
— what  old  Mrs.  Billing  had  also  seen — that  it  was  time. 
Mrs.  Rossiter  expressed  no  relief,  but  she  made  no  attempt 
to  dissuade  me.  That  she  was  sorry  she  allowed  me  to  see. 
She  didn't  speak  of  Hugh;  but  on  the  morning  when  I 
went  she  gave  up  her  engagements  to  stay  at  home  with 
me.  As  I  said  good-by  she  threw  her  arms  round  my 
neck  and  kissed  me.  I  could  feel  on  my  cheek  tears  of 
hers  as  well  as  tears  of  my  own,  as  I  drew  down  my  veil. 

Hugh  met  me  at  the  station  in  New  York,  and  we  dined 
at  a  restaurant  together.  He  came  for  me  next  morning, 
and  we  lunched  and  dined  at  restaurants  again.  When 
we  did  the  same  on  the  third  day  that  sense  of  being  in  a 
false  position  which  had  been  with  me  from  the  first,  and 
which  argument  couldn't  counteract,  began  to  be  dis- 
quieting. On  the  fourth  day  I  tried  to  make  excuses  and 
remain  at  the  hotel,  but  when  he  insisted  I  was  obliged 
to  let  him  take  me  out  once  more.  The  people  at  the 
Mary  Chilton  were  kindly,  but  I  was  afraid  they  would 
regard  me  with  suspicion.  I  was  afraid  of  some  other 
things,  besides. 

For  one  thing  I  was  afraid  of  Hugh.  He  began  again  to 
plead  with  me  to  marry  him.  Even  he  admitted  that  we 
couldn't  continue  to  "go  round  together  like  that."  We 
went  to  the  most  expensive  restaurants,  he  argued,  where 
there  were  plenty  of  people  who  would  know  him.  When 
they  saw  him  every  day  with  a  girl  they  didn't  know,  they 
would  draw  their  own  conclusions.  As  in  a  situation 
similar  to  theirs  I  would  have  drawn  my  own,  I  brought 
my  bit  of  Bohemianism  to  a  speedy  end. 

There  followed  some  days  during  which  it  seemed  to  me 

12  167 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

I  was  deprived  of  any  outlook.  I  could  hardly  see  what  I 
was  there  for.  I  could  hardly  see  what  I  was  living  for. 
Never  till  then  had  I  realized  how,  in  normal  conditions, 
each  day  is  linked  to  the  day  before  as  well  as  to  the  mor- 
row. Here  the  link  was  gone.  I  left  nothing  undone 
when  I  went  to  bed;  I  had  nothing  to  get  up  for  in  the 
morning.  My  reason  for  existing  had  suddenly  been 
snuffed  out. 

It  was  a  time  for  the  testing  of  my  faith.  I  was  near 
the  end  of  my  cul-de-sac,  and  yet  I  saw  no  further  develop- 
ment ahead.  If  the  continuous  unfolding  of  right  on  which, 
to  use  Larry  Strangways's  expression,  I  had  banked, 
were  to  come  to  a  stop,  I  should  be  left  not  only  without  a 
duty,  but  without  a  law.  Of  the  two  possibilities  it  was  the 
latter  I  dreaded  most.  One  can  live  if  one  has  a  motive 
theory  within  one;  without  it —  And  then,  just  as  I  was 
coming  to  the  last  stretches  of  what  seemed  a  blind  alley 
and  no  more,  my  confidence  was  justified.  Larry  Strang- 
ways  called  on  me. 

I  have  not  said  that  on  coming  to  New  York  I  had  de- 
cided to  let  my  acquaintance  with  him  end.  He  made  me 
uneasy.  I  was  terrified  by  the  thought  that  he  might  be 
in  love  with  me.  Why  I  was  terrified  I  didn't  know;  I 
only  knew  I  was.  I  did  not  tell  him,  therefore,  when  I  left 
Mrs.  Rossiter;  and  in  the  whirlpool  of  New  York  I  con- 
sidered that  I  was  swallowed  up.  But  here  was  his  card, 
and  he  himself  waiting  in  the  drawing-room  below. 

Naturally  my  first  question  was  as  to  how  he  had  found 
me  out.  This  he  laughed  off,  pretending  to  be  annoyed 
with  me  for  coming  to  the  city  without  telling  him.  I 
could  see,  however,  that  he  was  in  spirits  much  too  high  to 
allow  of  his  being  seriously  annoyed  with  anything.  Life 
promised  well  with  him.  He  enjoyed  his  work,  and  for  his 

1 68 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

employer  he  had  that  eager  personal  devotion  which  is  al- 
ways a  herald  of  success.  After  having  run  away  from 
him,  as  it  were,  I  was  now  a  little  irritated  at  seeing  that  he 
hadn't  missed  me. 

But  he  did  not  take  his  leave  without  a  bit  of  information 
that  puzzled  me  beyond  expression.  He  was  going  out  of 
Mr.  Grainger's  office  that  morning,  he  said,  with  a  bundle 
of  letters  which  he  was  to  answer,  when  his  master 
observed,  casually : 

"The  young  lady  of  whom  you  spoke  to  me  as  qualified 
to  take  Miss  Davis's  place  is  at  the  Hotel  Mary  Chilton. 
Go  and  see  her  and  get  her  opinion  as  to  accepting  the 
job!" 

I  was  what  the  French  call  atterrte — knocked  flat. 

"  But  how  on  earth  could  he  know?" 

Larry  Strangways  laughed. 

"Oh,  don't  ask  me.  He  knows  anything  he  wants  to 
know.  He's  got  the  flair  of  a  detective.  I  don't  try  to 
fathom  him.  But  the  point  is  that  the  position  is  there 
for  you  to  take  or  to  leave." 

I  tried  to  bring  my  mind  back  from  the  fact  that  this 
important  man,  a  total  stranger  to  me,  was  in  some  way 
interested  in  my  destiny. 

"What  can  I  do  but  leave  it,  when  I  know  no  more  about 
it  than  I  do  of  sailing  a  ship?" 

"Oh  yes,  you  do.  You  know  what  books  are,  and  you 
know  what  rare  books  are.  For  the  rest,  all  you'd  have  to 
do  would  be  to  consult  the  catalogue.  I  don't  know  what 
the  duties  are;  but  if  Miss  Davis  is  up  to  them  I  guess  you 
would  be,  too.  She's  a  sweet,  pretty  kitten  of  a  thing — 
daughter  of  one  of  Stacy  Grainger's  old  pals  who  came  to 
grief — but  I  don't  believe  she  knows  much  more  about  a 
book  than  the  cover  from  the  print.  Anyhow,  I've  given 

169 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

you  the  message  with  neither  more  nor  less  than  he  said. 
Look  here!"  he  exclaimed,  suddenly.  "Why  shouldn't 
you  put  on  your  hat  and  walk  down  the  street  with  me,  so 
that  I  could  show  you  where  the  library  is?  It's  not  ten 
minutes  away.  I've  never  been  inside  it,  but  every  one 
knows  what  it  looks  like." 

Consulting  my  wrist-watch,  I  objected  that  it  was  but 
twenty  minutes  to  the  time  when  Hugh  was  due  to  come 
and  take  me  to  walk  in  Central  Park,  returning  to  the 
hotel  to  tea. 

' '  Oh,  let  him  go  to  the  deuce !  We  can  be  there  and  back 
in  twenty  minutes,  and  you  can  leave  a  message  for  him 
at  the  office." 

So  we  started.  The  Mary  Chilton  is  in  one  of  the  cross- 
streets  between  Fifth  and  Sixth  Avenues.  I  discovered 
that  Stacy  Grainger's  house  was  on  the  corner  of  Fifth 
Avenue  and  a  corresponding  cross-street  a  little  farther 
down-town.  It  is  a  big  brownstone  house,  in  the  eigh- 
teen-seventy  style,  of  the  type  which  all  round  it  has  been 
turned  into  offices  and  shops.  All  its  many  windows  were 
blinded  in  a  yellowish  holland  stuff,  giving  to  the  whole 
building  an  aspect  sealed  and  dead. 

I  shuddered. 

"  I  hope  I  shouldn't  have  to  work  there." 

"No.  The  house  has  been  shut  up  for  years."  He 
named  the  hotel  overlooking  the  Park  at  which  Stacy 
Grainger  actually  lived.  "Anybody  else  would  have  sold 
the  place;  but  he  has  a  lot  of  queer  sentiment  about  him. 
Of  the  two  or  three  devotions  in  his  life  one  of  the  most 
intense  is  to  his  father's  memory.  I  believe  the  old  fellow 
committed  suicide  in  that  house,  and  the  son  hallows  it  as 
he  would  a  grave." 

"Cheerful!" 

170 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

"Oh,  cheerful  isn't  the  word  one  would  associate  with 
him  first — " 

"Or  last,  apparently." 

"No,  or  last;  but  he's  got  other  qualities  to  which 
cheerfulness  is  as  small  change  to  gold.  All  I  want  you  to 
see  is  that  he  keeps  this  property,  which  is  worth  half  a 
million  at  the  least,  from  motives  which  the  immense 
majority  wouldn't  understand.  It  gives  you  a  clue  to  the 
man." 

"But  what  I  want,"  I  said,  with  nervous  flippancy,  for 
I  was  afraid  of  meeting  Hugh,  "  is  a  clue  to  the  library." 

"There  it  is." 

"That?" 

He  had  pointed  to  a  small,  low,  rectangular  building  I 
had  seen  a  hundred  times,  without  the  curiosity  to  wonder 
what  it  was.  It  stood  behind  the  house,  in  the  center  of 
a  grass-plot,  and  was  approached  from  the  cross-street, 
through  a  small  wrought-iron  gate.  Built  of  brownstone, 
without  a  window,  and  with  no  other  ornament  than  a 
frieze  in  relief  below  the  eave,  it  suggested  a  tomb.  At  the 
back  was  a  kind  of  covered  cloister  connecting  with  the 
house. 

"  If  I  had  to  sit  in  there  all  day,"  I  commented,  as  we 
turned  back  toward  the  hotel,  "I  should  feel  as  if  I  were 
buried  alive.  I  know  that  strange  things  would  happen 
tome!" 

"Oh  no,  they  wouldn't.  It's  sure  to  be  all  right  or  a 
pretty  little  thing  like  Miss  Davis  couldn't  have  stood  it 
for  three  years.  It's  lighted  from  the  top,  and  there  are  a 
lot  of  fine  things  scattered  about." 

He  gave  me  a  brief  history  of  how  the  collection  had  been 
formed.  The  elder  Grainger  on  coming  to  New  York  had 
bought  up  the  contents  of  two  or  three  great  European 

171 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

sales  en  bloc.  He  knew  little  about  the  objects  he  had  thus 
acquired,  and  cared  less.  His  motive  was  simply  that  of 
the  rich  American  to  play  the  nobleman. 

He  was  still  talking  of  this  when  Hugh  passed  us  and 
turned  round.  Between  the  two  men  there  was  a  stiff 
form  of  greeting.  That  is,  it  was  stiff  on  Larry  Strang- 
ways's  side,  while  on  Hugh's  it  was  the  nearest  thing  to  no 
greeting  at  all.  I  could  see  he  considered  the  tutor  of  his 
sister's  son  beneath  him. 

"What  the  devil  were  you  walking  with  that  fellow  for?" 
he  asked,  after  Mr.  Strangways  had  left  us  and  while  we 
were  continuing  our  way  up-town.  He  spoke  wondering- 
ly  rather  than  impatiently. 

"Because  he  had  come  from  a  gentleman  who  had 
offered  me  employment.  I  had  just  gone  down  with 
him  to  look  at  the  outside  of  the  house." 

I  could  hardly  be  surprised  that  Hugh  should  stop 
abruptly,  forcing  the  stream  of  foot-passengers  to  divide 
into  two  currents  about  us. 

"The  impertinent  bounder!  Offer  employment — to 
you — my — my  wife !' ' 

I  walked  on  with  dignity. 

"You  mustn't  call  me  that,  Hugh.  It's  a  word  only  to 
be  used  in  its  exact  signification."  He  began  to  apologize, 
but  I  interrupted.  "I'm  not  only  not  your  wife,  but  as 
yet  I  haven't  even  promised  to  marry  you.  We  must  keep 
that  fact  unmistakably  clear  before  us.  It  will  prevent 
possible  complications  in  the  end." 

He  spoke  humbly: 

"What  sort  of  complications?" 

"I  don't  know;  but  I  can  see  they  might  arise.  And 
as  for  the  matter  of  employment,  I  must  have  it  for  a  lot 
of  reasons." 

172 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

' '  I  don't  see  that.     Give  me  two  or  three  months,  Alix !" 

"But  it's  precisely  during  those  two  or  three  months, 
Hugh,  that  I  should  be  left  high  and  dry.  Unless  I  have 
something  to  do  I  have  no  motive  for  staying  here  in 
New  York." 

"What  about  me?" 

"I  can't  stay  just  to  see  you.  That's  the  difference 
between  a  woman  and  a  man.  The  situation  is  awkward 
enough  as  it  is;  but  if  I  were  to  go  on  living  here  for  two  or 
three  months,  merely  for  the  sake  of  having  a  few  hours 
every  day  with  you — " 

Before  we  reached  the  Park  he  saw  the  justice  of  my  ar- 
gument. Remembering  what  Larry  Strangways  had  once 
said  as  to  Hugh's  belief  that  he  was  stooping  to  pick  his 
diamond  out  of  the  mire,  I  reasoned  that  since  he  was  mar- 
rying a  working-girl  it  would  best  preserve  the  decencies  if 
the  working-girl  were  working.  For  this  procedure  Hugh 
himself  was  able  to  establish  precedent,  since  we  were  in 
sight  of  the  very  hotel  where  Libby  Jaynes  had  rubbed 
men's  nails  up  to  within  an  hour  or  two  of  her  marriage  to 
Tracy  Allen.  He  pointed  it  out  as  if  it  was  an  historic 
monument,  and  in  the  same  spirit  I  gazed  at  it. 

That  matter  settled,  I  attacked  another  as  we  advanced 
farther  into  the  Park. 

"And  Mr.  Strangways  is  not  a  bounder,  Hugh,  darling. 
I  wish  you  wouldn't  call  him  that." 

His  response  was  sufficiently  good-natured,  but  it  ex- 
pressed that  Brokenshire  disdain  for  everything  that 
didn't  have  money  which  specially  enraged  me. 

"Well,  I  won't,"  he  conceded.  "I  don't  care  a  hang 
what  he  is." 

"I  do,"  I  declared,  with  some  tartness.  "I  care  that 
he's  a  gentleman  and  that  he's  treated  as  one." 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

"Oh,  every  one's  a  gentleman." 

"No,  Hugh,  every  one  isn't.  I  know  men  right  here  in 
New  York  who  could  buy  and  sell  Mr.  Strangways  a 
thousand  times,  perhaps  a  million  times  over,  and  who 
wouldn't  be  worthy  to  valet  him." 

His  small  wide-apart  blue  eyes  were  turned  on  me  ques- 
tioningly. 

"You  don't  know  many  men  right  here  in  New  York. 
Who  do  you  mean?" 

I  saw  that  he  had  me  there  and,  not  wishing  to  be  driven 
into  a  corner,  I  beat  a  shuffling  retreat. 

"  I  don't  mean  any  one  in  particular.  I'm  speaking  in 
general."  As  we  had  reached  an  empty  bench  and  the 
afternoon  was  hot,  I  suggested  that  we  sit  down. 

We  had  been  silent  a  little  while,  when  he  asked  the 
question  I  had  been  expecting. 

"Who  was  the  person  who  offered  you  the — the — " 
I  saw  how  he  hated  the  word — "the  employment?" 

I  had  already  decided  to  betray  no  knowledge  of  matters 
which  didn't  concern  me. 

"  It's  a  Mr.  Grainger,"  I  said,  as  casually  as  I  could. 

As  he  sat  close  to  me  I  could  feel  him  start. 

"Not  Stacy  Grainger?" 

I  maintained  my  tone  of  indifference. 

"I  think  that  is  his  name.  Do  you  know  him?  He 
seems  to  be  some  one  of  importance." 

"Oh,  he  is." 

"Mr.  Strangways  has  gone  to  him  as  secretary  and,  I 
suppose,  knowing  that  I  was  out  of  a  situation,  he  must 
have  mentioned  me." 

"For  what?" 

"As  I  understand  it,  it's  librarian.  It  seems  that  this 
Mr.  Grainger  has  quite  a  collection — " 

174 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

"Oh  yes,  I  know."  As  he  remained  silent  for  some 
time  I  waited  for  him  to  raise  objections,  but  he  only  said 
at  last:  "  In  that  case  you  wouldn't  have  much  to  do  with 
him.  He's  never  there." 

"No,  I  fancy  not,"  I  hastened  to  agree,  and  Hugh  said 
no  more. 

He  said  no  more,  but  I  could  see  that  it  was  because  he 
was  wrestling  with  a  subject  of  which  he  couldn't  perceive 
the  bearings.  As  far  as  I  was  concerned  he  plainly  con- 
sidered it  wise  not  to  tell  me  that  which,  as  a  stranger  and 
a  foreigner,  I  wouldn't  be  likely  to  know.  He  conse- 
quently dropped  the  topic,  and  when  he  talked  again  it  was 
of  trivial  things. 

A  half-hour  later,  as  we  were  on  our  way  homeward,  he 
exclaimed,  suddenly,  and  apropos  of  nothing  at  all: 

"Little  Alix,  if  you  were  to  love  anybody  else  I'd — I'd 
shoot  myself." 

His  innocent,  boyish,  inexperienced  face  wore  such  a 
look  of  misery  that  I  laughed.  I  laughed  to  conceal  the 
fact  that  I  was  near  to  crying. 

"Oh  no,  you  wouldn't,  Hugh.  Besides,  you  don't  see 
any  likelihood  of  my  doing  it." 

"  I'm  not  so  sure  about  that,"  he  grumbled. 

"Well,  I  am,  Hugh,  dear."  I  laughed  again.  "I've 
no  intention  of  loving  any  one  else — till  I've  settled  my 
account  with  your  father." 


CHAPTER  XII 

1VTEARLY  a  week  later,  in  the  middle  of  a  hot  afternoon, 
•*•  ^  I  came  back  from  some  shopping  to  wait  for  Hugh  at 
the  hotel.  Though  it  was  a  half -hour  before  I  expected 
him,  I  was  too  tired  to  go  up-stairs  and  so  went  directly  to 
the  reception-room.  It  was  not  only  cool  and  restful  there, 
but  after  the  glare  of  the  streets  outside,  it  was  so  dim  that 
I  took  the  place  to  be  empty.  Having  gone  to  a  mirror  for 
a  moment  to  straighten  my  hat  and  smooth  the  wayward 
tendrils  of  my  hair,  so  that  I  shouldn't  look  disheveled 
when  Hugh  arrived,  I  threw  myself  into  an  arm-chair. 

I  remember  that  my  attitude  was  anything  but  graceful, 
and  that  I  sighed.  I  sighed  more  than  once  and  somewhat 
loudly.  I  was  depressed,  and  as  usual  when  depressed  I 
felt  small  and  desolate.  It  would  have  been  a  relief  to 
cry;  but  I  couldn't  cry  when  I  was  expecting  Hugh.  I 
could  only  toss  about  in  my  big  chair  and  give  utterance  to 
my  pent-up  heart  a  little  too  explosively. 

It  was  five  or  six  days  since  Larry  Strangways's  call,  and 
no  real  development  of  my  blind  alley  was  in  sight.  He 
had  not  returned,  nor  had  I  heard  from  him.  On  the 
previous  evening  Hugh  had  said,  "I  thought  nothing 
would  come  of  that,"  in  a  tone  which  carried  conviction. 
It  wasn't  that  I  was  eager  to  be  Stacy  Grainger's  librarian ; 
it  was  only  that  I  wanted  something  to  happen,  something 
that  would  justify  my  staying  in  New  York.  August  had 

176 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

passed,  and  with  the  coming  in  of  September  I  saw  the 
stirring  of  a  new  lif e  in  the  streets ;  but  there  was  no  new 
life  for  me. 

Nor,  for  the  matter  of  that,  did  I  see  any  new  life  for 
Hugh.  He  had  entered  now  on  that  stage  of  waiting  on 
the  postman  which  a  good  many  people  have  found  sicken- 
ing. Bankers  and  brokers  having  promised  to  write  when 
they  knew  of  anything  to  suit  him,  he  was  expecting  a 
summons  by  every  delivery  of  letters.  On  his  dear  face 
I  began  to  read  the  evidence  of  hope  deferred.  He  was 
cheery  enough ;  he  could  find  fifty  explanations  to  account 
for  the  fact  that  he  hadn't  yet  been  called;  but  brave 
words  couldn't  counteract  the  look  of  disquietude  that  was 
creeping  day  by  day  into  his  kindly  eyes.  On  the  previous 
evening  he  had  informed  me,  too,  that  he  had  left  his  club 
and  installed  himself  in  a  small  hotel,  not  far  from  my 
own  neighborhood.  When  I  asked  him  why  he  had  done 
that  he  said  it  was  "to  get  away  from  a  lot  of  the  fellows 
who  were  always  chewing  the  rag,"  but  I  suspected  the 
motive  of  economy.  For  the  motive  of  economy  I  should 
have  had  nothing  but  respect,  if  it  hadn't  been  so  incon- 
gruous with  everything  I  had  known  of  him. 

It  was  probably  because  my  eyes  had  grow»  accustomed 
to  the  gloom  in  the  reception-room  that  I  noticed,  sudden- 
ly, two  other  eyes.  They  were  in  a  distant  corner  and 
seemed  to  be  looking  at  me  with  the  detached  and  burning 
stare  of  motor-lamps  at  night.  For  a  minute  I  could  dis- 
cern no  personality,  the  eyes  themselves  were  so  lustrous. 

I  was  about  to  be  frightened  when  a  man  arose  and 
restlessly  moved  toward  the  chimneypiece,  not  because 
there  was  anything  there  he  desired  to  see,  but  because  he 
couldn't  continue  to  sit  still.  He  was  a  striking  figure, 
tall,  spare,  large-boned  and  powerful.  The  face  was  of  the 

177 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

type  which  for  want  of  a  better  word  I  can  only  speak  of 
as  masculine.  It  was  long  and  lean  and  strong ;  if  it  was 
handsome  it  was  only  because  every  feature  and  line  was 
cut  to  the  same  large  pattern  as  the  frame.  Sweeping 
mustaches,  of  the  kind  school-girls  are  commonly  supposed 
to  love,  concealed  a  mouth  which  I  could  have  wagered 
would  be  hard,  while  the  luminosity  of  the  gaze  suggested 
a  rather  hungry  set  of  human  qualities  and  passions. 

We  were  now  two  restless  persons  instead  of  one,  and  I 
was  about  to  leave  the  room  when  a  page  came  in. 

"Sorry,  sir,"  said  the  honest-faced  little  boy,  with  an 
amusingly  uncouth  accent  I  find  it  impossible  to  transcribe, 
"but  number  four-twenty-three  ain't  in,  so  I  guess  she 
must  be  out." 

Startled,  I  rose  to  my  feet. 

"But  I'm  number  four-twenty-three." 

The  boy  turned  toward  me  nonchalantly. 

"Didn't  know  you  was  here!  That  gentleman  wants 
you." 

With  this  introduction  he  dashed  away,  and  I  was  once 
more  conscious  of  the  luminous  eyes  bent  upon  me.  The 
tall  figure,  too,  advanced  a  few  paces  in  my  direction. 

"I  asked  for  Miss  Adare."  The  voice  was  deep  and 
grave  and  harsh  and  musical  all  at  once. 

"That's  my  name." 

"Mine's  Grainger." 

I  gasped  silently,  like  a  dying  fish,  before  I  could  stam- 
mer the  words 

"Won't  you  sit  down?" 

As  he  seated  himself  near  me  and  in  a  good  light,  I  saw 
that  his  skin  was  tanned,  as  if  he  lived  on  the  sea  or  in  the 
open  air.  I  learned  later  from  Larry  Strangways  that 
he  had  just  come  from  a  summer's  yachting.  His  gaze 

178 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

studied  me — not  as  a  man  studies  a  woman,  but  as  a  work- 
man inspects  a  tool. 

"You  probably  know  my  errand." 

"Mr.  Strangways — " 

"Yes,  I  told  him  to  sound  you." 

"But  I'm  afraid  I  wouldn't  do." 

"  Why  do  you  think  so  ?" 

"Because  I  don't  know  anything  about  the  work." 

"There's  no  work  to  know  anything  about.  All  you'd 
have  to  do  would  be  to  sit  still.  You'd  never  have  more 
than  two  or  three  visitors  in  a  day — and  most  days  none 
at  all." 

"But  what  should  I  do  when  visitors  came?" 

"Show  them  what  they  asked  to  see.  You'd  find  that 
in  the  catalogue.  You'd  soon  get  the  hang  of  the  place. 
It's  small.  There's  not  much  in  it  when  you  come  to  sum 
it  up.  Miss  Davis  will  show  you  the  ropes  before  she 
leaves  on  the  first  of  October.  I'll  give  you  the  same 
salary  I've  been  paying  her." 

He  named  a  sum  the  munificence  of  which  almost  took 
my  breath  away. 

"  Oh,  but  I  shouldn't  be  worth  that." 

" It's  the  salary,"  he  said,  briefly,  as  he  rose.  "You  can 
arrange  with  my  secretary,  Strangways,  when  you  would 
like  to  begin.  The  sooner  the  better,  as  I  understand  that 
Miss  Davis  would  like  to  get  off." 

He  was  on  his  way  to  the  door  when,  thinking  of  the 
tomb-like  aspect  of  the  place,  I  asked,  desperately: 

"Should  I  be  all  alone?" 

He  turned. 

1 '  There's  a  man  and  his  wife  in  the  house.  One  of  them 
would  be  always  within  call.  The  woman  will  bring  you 
tea  at  half  past  four." 

179 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

I  could  hardly  believe  my  ears.  I  had  never  heard  of 
such  solicitude.  .  "But  I  shouldn't  need  tea!"  I  began  to 
assure  him. 

He  paused  for  a  moment,  looking  at  me  searchingly. 

"You'll  have  callers — " 

"Ohno,Isha'n't." 

"You'll  have  callers,"  he  repeated,  as  if  I  hadn't  spoken, 
"and  there'll  be  tea  every  day  at  four-thirty." 

He  was  gone  before  I  could  protest  further,  or  ask  any 
more  questions. 

Hugh's  explanation,  when  I  laid  the  matter  before  him, 
was  that  Mr.  Grainger  was  trying  to  play  into  the  hands 
of  that  fellow,  Strangways. 

"  But  why?"  I  demanded. 

"He  thinks  there's  something  between  him  and  you." 

"But  there  isn't." 

"I  should  hope  not;  but,  evidently,  Strangways  has 
made  him  think — " 

"Oh  no,  he  hasn't,  Hugh.  Mr.  Strangways  is  not  that 
kind  of  man.  Mr.  Grainger  has  some  other  reason  for 
wanting  me  there,  but  I  can't  think  what  it  is." 

"Then  I  shouldn't  go  till  I  knew,"  Hugh  counseled, 
moodily. 

But  I  did.     I  went  the  next  week.     Larry  Strangways 
,  made  the  arrangements,  and,  after  a  fortnight  under  Miss 
Davis's  instructions,  I  found  myself  alone. 

It  was  not  so  trying  as  I  feared,  though  it  was  monoto- 
nous. It  was  monotonous  because  there  was  so  little  to  do. 
I  was  there  each  morning  at  half  past  nine.  From  one  to 
two  I  had  an  hour  for  lunch.  At  six  I  came  away.  On 
Saturdays  I  had  the  afternoon.  It  was  a  little  like  being  a 
prisoner,  but  a  prisoner  in  a  palace,  a  prisoner  who  is  well 
paid. 

1 80 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

The  place  consisted  of  one  big,  handsome  room,  some 
sixty  feet  by  thirty,  resembling  the  libraries  of  great  houses 
I  had  seen  abroad.  That  in  this  case  it  was  detached  from 
the  dwelling  was,  I  suppose,  a  matter  of  architectural 
convenience.  Book-shelves  lined  the  walls  right  up  to  the 
cornice.  The  dull  reds  and  browns  and  blues  and  greens 
of  the  bindings  carried  out  the  mellow  effects  of  the 
Oriental  rugs  on  the  floor.  Under  the  shelves  there  were 
cupboards,  some  of  them  empty,  others  stocked  with 
portfolios  of  prints,  European  and  Japanese.  There  were 
no  pictures,  but  a  few  large  pieces  of  old  porcelain  and 
faience,  Persian,  Spanish,  and  Chinese,  stood  on  the 
mantelpiece  and  tables.  For  the  rest,  the  furnishings  con- 
sisted of  a  bust  or  two,  a  desk  or  two,  and  some  decorative 
tables  and  chairs. 

My  chief  objection  to  the  life  was  its  seeming  pointless- 
ness.  I  was  hard  at  work  doing  nothing.  The  number  of 
visitors  was  negligible.  Once  during  the  autumn  an  old 
gentleman  brought  some  engravings  to  compare  with 
similar  examples  in  Mr.  Grainger's  collection;  once  a  lady 
student  of  Shakespeare  came  to  examine  his  early  editions; 
perhaps  as  often  as  twice  a  week  some  wandering  tourist 
in  New  York  would  enter  and  stare  vacantly,  and  go  as  he 
arrived.  To  while  away  the  time  I  read  and  wrote  and  did 
knitting  and  fancy-work,  and  at  half  past  four  every  day, 
as  regularly  as  the  hands  of  the  clock  came  round,  I 
solemnly  had  my  tea.  It  was  very  good  tea,  with  cake  and 
bread  and  butter  in  the  orthodox  style,  and  was  brought 
by  Mrs.  Daly,  the  motherly  old  Irish  caretaker  of  the 
house,  who  stumped  in  and  stumped  out,  giving  me,  while 
she  stayed,  a  good  deal  of  detail  as  to  her  "sky-attic" 
nerves  and  swollen  "varikiss"  veins. 

I  am  bound  to  admit  that  the  tea  ceremony  oppressed 
181 


THE   HIGH   HEART 

me — not  that  I  didn't  enjoy  it  in  its  way,  but  because  its 
generosity  seemed  overdone.  It  was  not  in  the  necessities 
of  the  case;  it  was,  above  all,  not  American.  On  both  the 
occasions  when  Mr.  Grainger  honored  the  library  with  a 
call  I  tried  to  screw  up  my  courage  to  ask  him  to  let  me  off 
this  hospitality,  but  I  couldn't  reach  the  point.  I  was  not 
so  much  afraid  of  him  as  I  was  overawed.  He  was  per- 
fectly civil;  he  never  treated  me  as  the  dust  beneath  his 
feet,  like  Howard  Brokenshire;  but  any  one  could  see  that 
he  was  immensely  and  perhaps  tragically  preoccupied. 

I  was  having  tea  all  alone  on  a  cold  afternoon  in  Novem- 
ber, when  the  sound  of  the  opening  of  the  outer  door  at- 
tracted my  attention.  At  first  one  came  into  a  vestibule 
from  which  there  was  no  entrance,  till  on  my  side  I  touched 
the  spring  of  a  closed  wrought-iron  grille.  I  had  gone 
forward  to  see  who  was  there  and,  if  necessary,  give  the 
further  admission,  when  to  my  astonishment  I  saw  Mrs. 
Brokenshire. 

She  was  in  a  walking-dress  with  furs.  The  color  in  her 
cheeks  might  have  been  due  to  the  cold  wind,  but  the 
light  in  her  eyes  was  that  of  excitement. 

"I  heard  you  were  here,"  she  whispered,  as  she  fluttered 
in,  "and  I've  come  to  see  you." 

My  sense  of  the  imprudence  of  this  step  was  such  that  I 
could  hardly  welcome  her.  That  feeling  of  protection 
which  I  had  once  before  on  her  behalf  came  back  to  me. 

"Who  told  you?"  I  asked,  as  soon  as  she  was  seated  and 
I  was  pouring  her  out  a  cup  of  tea.  For  the  first  time  since 
taking  the  position  I  was  glad  the  ceremony  had  not  been 
suppressed. 

She  answered,  while  glancing  into  the  shadows  about 
her. 

"Mildred  told  me.  Hugh  wrote  it  to  her.  He  does 

182 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

write  to  her,  you  know.  She's  the  only  one  with  whom  he 
is  still  in  communication.  She  seems  to  think  the  poor 
boy  is  in  trouble.  I  came  to — to  see  if  there  was  anything 
I  could  do." 

I  told  her  I  was  living  at  the  Hotel  Mary  Chilton  and 
that,  if  necessary  at  any  time,  she  could  see  me  there. 

She  repeated  the  address,  but  I  knew  it  took  no  hold 
on  her  memory. 

"Ah  yes;  the  Hotel  Mary  Chilton.  I  think  I've  heard 
of  it.  But  I  haven't  many  minutes,  and  you  must  tell  me 
all  you  can  about  dear  Hugh." 

As  my  anxiety  on  Hugh's  account  was  deepening,  I  was 
the  more  eager  to  do  as  I  was  bid.  I  said  he  had  found  no 
employment  as  yet,  and  that  in  my  opinion  employment 
would  be  hard  to  secure.  If  he  was  willing  to  work  for  a 
year  or  two  for  next  to  nothing,  as  he  would  consider  the 
salary,  he  might  eventually  learn  the  financial  trade;  but 
to  expect  that  his  name  would  be  a  key  to  open  the  door  of 
any  bank  at  which  he  might  present  himself  was  prepos- 
terous. I  hadn't  been  able  to  convince  him  of  that,  how- 
ever, and  he  was  still  hoping.  But  he  was  hoping  with  a 
sad,  worried  face  that  almost  broke  my  heart. 

"And  how  is  he  off  for  money?" 

I  said  I  thought  his  bank-account  was  running  low.  He 
made  no  complaint  of  that  to  me,  but  I  noticed  that  he 
rarely  now  went  to  any  of  his  clubs,  and  that  he  took  his 
meals  at  the  more  inexpensive  places.  In  taxis,  too,  he 
was  careful,  and  in  tickets  for  the  theater.  These  were  the 
signs  by  which  I  judged. 

Her  eyes  had  the  sweet  mistiness  I  remembered  from  our 
last  meeting. 

"  I  can  let  him  have  money — as  much  as  he  needs." 

I  considered  this. 

13  183 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

"But  it  would  be  Mr.  Brokenshire's  money,  wouldn't 
it?" 

"  It  would  be  money  Mr.  Brokenshire  gives  me." 

"  In  that  case  I  don't  think  Hugh  could  accept  it.  You 
see,  he's  trying  to  make  himself  independent  of  his  father, 
so  as  to  do  what  his  father  doesn't  like." 

"But  he  can't  starve." 

"He  must  either  starve,  or  earn  a  living,  or  go  back  to 
his  father  and — give  up." 

"Does  that  mean  that  you  won't  marry  him  unless  he 
has  money  of  his  own?" 

"  It  means  what  I've  said  more  than  once  before — that  I 
can't  marry  him  if  he  has  no  money  of  his  own,  unless  his 
family  come  and  ask  me  to  do  it." 

There  was  a  little  furrow  between  her  brows. 

"Oh,  well,  they  won't  do  that.  I  would,"  she  hastened 
to'add,  "because — "  she  smiled,  like  an  angel — "because  I 
believe  in  love;  but  they  wouldn't." 

"I  think  Mrs.  Rossiter  would,"  I  argued,  "if  she  was 
left  free." 

"She  might;  and,  of  course,  there's  Mildred.  She'd  do 
anything  for  Hugh,  though  she  thinks  .  .  .  but  neither 
Jack  nor  Pauline  would  give  in;  and  as  for  Mr.  Broken- 
shire — I  believe  it  would  break  his  heart." 

"Why  should  he  feel  toward  me  like  that?"  I  demanded, 
bitterly.  "  How  am  I  inferior  to  Pauline  Gray,  except  that 
I  have  no  money?" 

"Well,  I  suppose  in  a  way  that's  it.  It's  what  Mr. 
Brokenshire  calls  the  solidarity  of  aristocracies.  They 
have  to  hold  together." 

"But  aristocracy  and  money  aren't  one." 

As  she  rose  she  smiled  again,  distantly  and  dreamily. 
"  If  you  were  an  American,  dear  Miss  Adare,  you'd  know." 

184 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

Before  she  said  good-by  she  looked  deliberately  about 
the  room.  It  was  not  the  hasty  inspection  I  should  have 
expected ;  it  was  tranquil,  and  I  could  even  say  that  it  was 
thorough.  She  made  no  mention  of  Mr.  Grainger,  but  I 
couldn't  help  thinking  he  was  in  her  mind. 

At  the  door  to  which  I  accompanied  her,  however,  her 
manner  changed.  Before  trusting  herself  to  the  few  paces 
of  walk  running  from  the  entrance  to  the  wrought-iron 
gate,  she  glanced  up  and  down  the  street.  It  was  dark  by 
this  time,  and  the  lamps  were  lit,  but  not  till  the  pavement 
was  tolerably  clear  did  she  venture  out.  Even  then  she 
didn't  turn  toward  Fifth  Avenue,  which  would  have  been 
her  natural  direction;  but  rapidly  and,  as  I  imagined, 
furtively,  she  walked  the  other  way. 

I  mentioned  to  no  one  that  she  had  come  to  see  me.  Her 
kind  thought  of  Hugh  I  was  sorry  to  keep  to  myself;  but  I 
knew  of  no  purpose  to  be  served  in  divulging  it.  With  my 
maxim  to  guide  me  it  was  not  difficult  to  be  sure  that  in 
this  case  right  lay  in  silence. 

A  few  days  later  I  got  Hugh's  doings  from  a  new  point 
of  view.  As  I  was  going  back  to  my  lunch  at  the  hotel, 
Mrs.  Rossiter  called  to  me  from  her  motor  and  made  me 
get  in.  The  distance  I  had  to  cover  being  slight,  she  drove 
me  up  to  Central  Park  and  back  again  to  have  the  time  to 
talk. 

"My  dear,  he's  crazy.  He's  going  round  to  all  the 
offices  that  practically  turned  him  out  six  or  eight  weeks 
ago  and  begging  them  to  find  a  place  for  him.  Two  or 
three  of  papa's  old  friends  have  written  to  ask  what  they 
could  really  do  for  him — for  papa,  that  is — and  he's  sent 
them  word  that  he'd  take  it  as  a  favor  if  they'd  show 
Hugh  to  the  door." 

"Of  course,  if  his  father  makes  himself  his  enemy — " 
185 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

"He  only  makes  himself  his  enemy  in  order  to  be  his 
friend,  dear  Miss  Adare.  He's  your  friend,  too,  papa  is, 
if  you  only  saw  it." 

"  I'm  afraid  I  don't,"  I  said,  dryly. 

"Oh,  you  will  some  day,  and  do  him  justice.  He's  the 
kindest  man  when  you  let  him  have  his  own  way." 

"Which  would  be  to  separate  Hugh  and  me." 

"But  you'd  both  get  over  that;  and  I  know  he'd  do  the 
handsome  thing  by  you,  as  well  as  by  him." 

"  So  long  as  we  do  the  handsome  thing  by  each  other — " 

"Oh,  v.ell,  you  can  see  where  that  leads  to.  Hugh  '11 
never  be  in  a  position  to  marry  you,  dear  Miss  Adare." 

"He  will  when  your  father  comes  round." 

"Nonsense,  my  dear!  You  know  you're  not  looking 
forward  to  that,  not  any  more  than  I  am." 

Later,  as  I  was  getting  out  at  my  door,  she  said,  as  if  it 
was  an  afterthought: 

"  Oh,  by  the  way,  you  know  papa  has  made  me  write  to 
Lady  Cissie  Boscobel?" 

I  looked  up  at  her  from  the  pavement. 

"What  for?" 

"To  ask  her  to  come  over  and  spend  a  month  or  two  in 
New  York.  She  says  she  will  if  she  can.  She's  a  good 
deal  of  a  girl,  Cissie  is.  If  you're  going  to  keep  your  hold 
on  Hugh —  Well,  all  I  can  say  is  that  Cissie  will  give  you  a 
run  for  your  money.  Of  course,  it's  nothing  to  me.  I 
only  thought  I'd  tell  you." 

This,  too,  I  kept  from  Hugh;  but  I  seized  an  early  op- 
portunity to  paint  the  portrait  of  the  imaginary  charming 
girl  he  could  have  for  a  wife,  with  plenty  of  money  to 
support  himself  and  her,  if  he  would  only  give  me  up. 
This  was  as  we  walked  home  one  night  from  the  theater — 
I  was  obliged  from  time  to  time  to  let  him  take  me  so 

1 86 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

that  we  might  have  a  pretext  for  being  together — and  we 
strolled  in  the  shadows  of  the  narrow  cross-streets. 

"Little  Alix,"  he 'declared,  fervently,  "I  could  no  more 
give  you  up  than  I  could  give  up  my  breath  or  my  blood. 
You're  part  of  me.  You're  the  most  vital  part  of  me.  If 
you  were  to  fail  me  I  should  die.  If  I  were  to  fail  you — 
But  that's  not  worth  thinking  of.  Look  here!"  He 
paused  in  a  dark  spot  beside  a  great  silent  warehouse. 
"Look  here.  I'm  having  a  pretty  tough  time.  I'll  con- 
fess it.  I  didn't  mean  to  tell  you,  but  I  will.  When  I  go 
to  see  certain  people  now — men  I've  met  dozens  of  times 
at  my  father's  table — what  do  you  think  happens?  They 
have  me  shown  to  the  door,  and  not  too  politely.  These 
are  the  chaps  who  two  months  ago  were  squirming  for  joy 
at  the  thought  of  getting  me.  What  do  you  think  of  that  ? 
How  do  you  suppose  it  makes  me  feel?"  I  was  about  to 
break  in  with  some  indignant  response  when  he  continued, 
placidly:  "Well,  it  all  turns  to  music  the  minute  I  think  of 
you.  It's  as  if  I'd  drunk  some  glowing  cordial.  I'm 
kicked  out,  let  us  say — and  it's  not  too  much  to  say — and 
I'm  ready  to  curse  for  all  I'm  worth,  but  I  think  of  you. 
I  remember  I'm  doing  it  for  you  and  bearing  it  for  you,  so 
that  one  day  I  may  strike  the  right  thing  and  we  may  be 
together  and  happy  forever  afterward,  and  I  swear  to  you 
it's  as  if  angels  were  singing  in  the  sky." 

I  had  to  let  him  kiss  me  there  in  the  shadow  of  the  street, 
as  if  we  were  a  footman  and  a  housemaid.  I  had  to  let  him 
kiss  away  my  tears  and  soothe  me  and  console  me.  I  told 
him  I  wasn't  worthy  of  such  love,  and  that,  if  he  would 
consider  the  fitness  of  things,  he  would  go  away  and  leave 
me,  but  he  only  kissed  me  the  more. 

Again  I  was  having  my  tea.  It  had  been  a  lifeless  day, 
and  I  was  wondering  how  long  I  could  endure  the  Kfeless- 

187 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

ness.  Not  a  soul  had  come  near  the  place  since  morn- 
ing, and  my  only  approach  to  human  intercourse  had 
been  in  discussing  Mrs.  Daly's  "varikiss"  veins.  Even  that 
interlude  was  over,  for  the  lady  would  not  return  for  the 
tea  things  till  after  my  departure.  I  was  so  lonely — I 
felt  the  uselessness  of  what  I  was  doing  so  acutely — that 
in  spite  of  the  easy  work  and  generous  pay  I  was  thinking 
of  sending  my  resignation  in  to  Mr.  Grainger  and  looking 
for  something  else. 

The  outer  door  opened  swiftly  and  silently,  and  I  knew 
some  one  was  inside.  I  knew,  too,  before  rising  from  my 
place,  that  it  was  Mrs.  Brokenshire.  Subconsciously  I  had 
been  expecting  her,  though  I  couldn't  have  said  why.  Her 
lovely  face  was  all  asparkle. 

"I've  come  to  see  you  again,"  she  whispered,  as  I  let 
her  in.  "I  hope  you're  alone. ' ' 

I  replied  that  I  was  and,  choosing  my  words  carefully, 
I  said  it  was  kind  of  her  to  keep  me  in  mind. 

"Oh  yes,  I  keep  you  in  mind,  and  I  keep  Hugh.  What 
I've  really  come  for  is  to  beg  you  to  hand  him  the 
money  of  which  I  spoke  the  other  day." 

She  seated  herself,  but  not  before  glancing  about  the 
room,  either  expectantly  or  fearfully.  As  I  poured  out 
her  tea  I  repeated  what  I  had  said  already  on  the  subject 
of  the  money.  She  wasn't  listening,  however.  When  she 
made  replies  they  were  not  to  the  point.  All  the  while 
she  sipped  her  tea  and  nibbled  her  cake  her  eyes  had  the 
shifting  alertness  of  a  watchful  little  bird's. 

"  Oh,  but  what  does  it  all  matter  when  it's  a  question  of 
love?"  she  said,  somewhat  at  a  venture.  "Love  is  the 
only  thing,  don't  you  think?  It  must  make  its  oppor- 
tunities as  it  can." 

"You  mean  that  love  can  be — unscrupulous?" 

1 88 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

"Oh,  I  shouldn't  use  that  word." 

"  It  isn't  the  word  I'm  thinking  of.     It's  the  act." 

"  Love  is  like  war,  isn't  it  ?    All's  fair !' ' 

"But  is  it?" 

Her  eyes  rested  on  mine,  not  boldly,  but  with  a  certain 
daring. 

"Why— yes." 

"You  believe  that?" 

She  still  kept  her  eyes  on  mine.  Her  tone  was  that  of  a 
challenge. 

"Why — yes."  She  added,  perhaps  defiantly,  "Don't 
you?" 

I  said,  decidedly: 

"No,  I  don't." 

"  Then  you  don't  love.  You  can't  love.  Love  is  reck- 
less. Love — ' '  There  was  a  long  pause  before  she  dropped 
the  two  concluding  words,  spacing  them  apart  as  if  to 
emphasize  her  deliberation.  "Love — risks — all." 

"  If  it  risks  all  it  may  lose  all." 

The  challenge  was  renewed. 

"  Well?     Isn't  that  better  than—?" 

"It's  not  better  than  doing  right,"  I  hastened  to  say, 
"however  hard  it  may  be." 

"Ah,  but  what  is  right?  A  thing  can't  be  right  if — 
if — "  she  sought  for  a  word — "if  it's  killing  you." 

As  she  said  this  there  was  a  sound  along  the  corridor 
leading  from  the  house.  I  thought  Mrs.  Daly  had  for- 
gotten something  and  was  coming  back.  But  the  tread 
was  different  from  her  slow  stump,  and  my  sense  of  a  dan- 
ger at  hand  was  such  as  the  good  woman  never  inspired. 

Mrs.  Brokenshire  made  no  attempt  to  play  a  part  or  to 
put  me  off  the  scent.  She  acted  as  if  I  understood  what 
was  happening.  Her  teacup  resting  in  her  lap,  she  sat 

189 


THE   HIGH    HEART 

with  eyes  aglow  and  lips  slightly  apart  in  a  look  of  heavenly 
expectation.  I  could  hardly  believe  her  to  be  the  dazed, 
stricken  little  creature  I  had  seen  three  months  ago. 
As  the  footsteps  approached  she  murmured,  "He's  com- 
ing!" or,  "Who's  coming?"  I  couldn't  be  sure  which. 

Mr.  Grainger  entered  like  a  man  who  is  on  his  own 
ground  and  knows  what  he  is  about  to  find.  There  was 
no  uncertainty  in  his  manner  and  no  apparent  sense  of 
secrecy.  His  head  was  high  and  his  walk  firm  as  he 
pushed  his  way  amid  tables  and  chairs  to  where  we  were 
sitting  in  the  glow  of  a  shaded  light. 

I  stood  up  as  he  approached,  but  I  had  time  to  appraise 
my  situation.  I  saw  all  its  little  mysteries  illumined  as  by 
a  flash.  I  saw  why  Stacy  Grainger  had  kept  track  of 
me;  I  saw  why,  in  spite  of  my  deficiencies,  he  had  taken 
me  on  as  his  librarian;  but  I  saw,  too,  that  the  Lord  had 
delivered  J.  Howard  Brokenshire  into  my  hands,  as  Sisera 
into  those  of  Jael,  the  wife  of  Heber  the  Kenite. 


CHAPTER  XIII 

I  WAS  relieved  of  some  of  my  embarrassment  by  the  fact 
that  Mr.  Grainger  took  command. 

Having  bowed  over  Mrs.  Brokenshire's  hand  with  an 
empressement  he  made  no  attempt  to  conceal,  he  mur- 
mured the  words,  "I'm  delighted  to  see  you  again." 
After  this  greeting,  which  might  have  been  commonplace 
and  was  not,  he  turned  to  me.  "Perhaps  Miss  Adare  will 
give  me  some  tea." 

I  could  carry  out  this  request,  listen  to  their  scraps  of 
conversation,  and  think  my  own  thoughts  all  at  the  same 
time. 

Thinking  my  own  thoughts  was  the  least  easy  of  the 
three,  for  the  reason  that  thought  stunned  me.  The  facts 
knocked  me  on  the  head.  Since  before  my  engagement  as 
Mr.  Grainger's  librarian  this  situation  had  been  planned! 
Mrs.  Brokenshire  had  chosen  me  for  my  part  in  it!  She 
had  given  Mr.  Grainger  my  address,  which  she  could  have 
learned  from  her  mother,  and  recommended  me  as  one 
with  whom  they  would  be  safe ! 

Their  talk  was  only  of  superficial  things;  but  it  was  not 
the  clue  to  their  emotions.  That  was  in  the  way  they 
talked — haltingly,  falteringly,  with  glances  that  met  and 
shifted  and  fell,  or  that  rested  on  each  other  with  long, 
mute  looks,  and  then  turned  away  hurriedly,  as  if  some- 
thing in  the  spirit  reeled.  As  she  gave  him  bits  of  informa- 

191 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

tion  concerning  the  summer  at  Newport,  she  stumbled  in 
her  words,  because  there  was  no  correlation  between  the 
sentences  she  formed  and  her  fundamental  thought.  The 
same  was  true  of  his  account  of  yachting  on  the  coast  of 
Maine,  of  Gloucester,  Islesboro,  and  Bar  Harbor.  He  stut- 
tered and  stammered  and  repeated  himself.  It  was  like 
one  of  those  old  Italian  duets  in  which  stupid  words  are 
sung  to  a  passionate,  heartbreaking  melody.  Neverthe- 
less, I  had  enough  sympathy  with  love,  even  with  a  guilty 
love,  to  have  some  mercy  in  my  judgments. 

Not  that  I  believed  it  to  be  a  guilty  love — as  yet.  That, 
too,  I  was  obliged  to  think  over  and  form  my  opinion  about 
it.  It  was  not  a  guilty  love  as  yet;  but  it  might  easily 
become  a  guilty  love.  I  remembered  that  Larry  Strang- 
ways,  with  all  his  admiration  for  his  employer,  had  refused 
him  a  place  in  his  list  of  whole-hearted,  clean-hearted  men 
because  he  had  a  weakness;  and  I  reflected  that  on  the 
part  of  Mrs.  Billing's  daughter  there  might  be  no  rigorous 
concept  of  the  moralities.  What  I  saw,  therefore,  was  a 
man  and  a  woman  so  consumed  with  longing  for  each  other 
that  guilt  would  be  chiefly  a  matter  of  opportunity.  To 
create  that  opportunity  I  had  been  brought  upon  the  scene. 

I  could  see,  of  course,  how  admirably  I  was  suited  to  the 
purpose  I  was  meant  to  serve.  In  the  first  place,  I  was 
young,  and  might  but  dimly  perceive — might  not  perceive 
at  all — what  was  being  done  with  me.  In  the  next  place,  I 
was  presumably  too  inexperienced  to  take  a  line  of  my  own 
even  if  I  suspected  what  was  not  for  me  to  know.  Then,  I 
was  poor  and  a  stranger,  and  too  glad  of  the  easy  work  for 
which  I  was  liberally  paid  not  to  be  willing  to  take  its 
bitter  with  its  sweet.  Lastly,  I,  too,  was  in  love;  and  I, 
too,  was  a  victim  of  Howard  Brokenshire.  If  I  couldn't 
approve  of  what  I  might  see  and  hear,  at  least  I  might  be 

192 


I    SAW    A    MAN    AND   A    WOMAN   CONSUMED    WITH   LON(il\(i 
FOR   EACH   OTHER 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

reckoned  on  not  to  speak  of  it.  Once  more  I  was 
made  to  feel  that,  though  I  might  play  a  subordinate 
r61e  of  some  importance,  my  own  wishes  and  person- 
ality didn't  count. 

It  was  obviously  a  minute  at  which  to  bring  my  maxim 
into  operation.  I  had  to  do  what  was  Right — with  a 
capital.  For  that  I  must  wait  for  inspiration,  and  present- 
ly I  got  it. 

That  is,  I  got  it  by  degrees.  I  got  it  first  by  noting  in  a 
puzzled  way  the  glances  which  both  my  companions  sent 
in  my  direction.  They  were  sidelong  glances,  singularly 
alike,  whether  they  came  from  Stacy  Grainger's  melancholy 
brown  eyes  or  Mrs.  Brokenshire's  sweet,  misty  ones.  They 
were  timid  glances,  pleading,  uneasy.  They  asked  what 
words  wouldn't  dare  to  ask,  and  what  I  was  too  dense  to 
understand.  I  sat  sipping  my  tea,  running  hot  and  cold  as 
the  odiousness  of  my  position  struck  me  from  the  various 
points  of  view;  but  I  made  no  attempt  to  move. 

They  were  still  talking  of  people  of  whom  I  knew  noth- 
ing, but  talking  brokenly,  futilely,  for  the  sake  of  hearing 
each  other's  voice,  and  yet  stifling  the  things  which  it 
would  have  been  fatal  to  them  both  to  say,  when  Mr. 
Grainger  got  up  and  brought  me  his  cup. 

"May  I  have  another?" 

I  looked  up  to  take  the  cup,  but  he  held  it  in  his  hands. 
He  held  it  in  his  hands  and  gazed  down  at  me.  He  gazed 
down  at  me  with  an  expression  such  as  I  have  never  seen 
in  any  eyes  but  a  dog's.  As  I  write  I  blush  to  remember 
that,  with  such  a  mingling  of  hints  and  entreaties  and  com- 
mands, I  didn't  know  what  he  was  trying  to  convey  to  me. 
I  took  the  cup,  poured  out  his  tea,  handed  the  cup  back  to 
him — and  sat. 

But  after  he  had  reached  his  seat  the  truth  flashed  on 

193 


THE   HIGH   HEART 

me.  I  was  in  the  way;  I  was  detrop.  I  had  done  part  of 
my  work  in  being  the  pretext  for  Mrs.  Brokenshire's  visit; 
now  I  ought,  tactfully,  to  absent  myself.  I  needn't  go  far; 
I  needn't  go  for  long.  There  was  an  alcove  at  the  end  of 
the  room  where  one  could  be  out  of  sight;  there  was  also 
the  corridor  leading  to  the  house.  I  could  easily  make  an 
excuse;  I  could  get  up  and  move  without  an  excuse  of  any 
kind.  But  I  sat. 

I  hated  myself ;  I  despised  myself;  but  I  sat.  I  drank 
my  tea  without  knowing  it;  I  ate  my  cake  without  tast- 
ing it — and  I  sat. 

The  talk  between  my  companions  grew  more  fitful. 
Silence  was  easier  for  them — silence  and  that  dumb  inter- 
change of  looks  which  had  the  sympathy  of  something 
within  myself.  I  knew  that  in  their  eyes  I  was  a  nuisance, 
a  thing  to  be  got  rid  of.  I  was  so  in  my  own — but  I  went 
on  eating  and  drinking  stolidly — and  sat. 

It  was  in  my  mind  that  this  was  my  chance  to  be 
avenged  on  Howard  Brokenshire;  but  I  didn't  want  my 
vengeance  that  way.  I  have  to  confess  that  I  was  so  poor- 
spirited  as  to  have  little  or  no  animosity  against  him.  I 
could  see  how  easy  it  was  for  him  to  think  of  me  as  an 
adventuress.  I  wanted  to  convince  and  convert  him,  but 
not  to  make  him  suffer.  If  in  any  sense  I  could  be  called 
the  guardian  of  his  interests  I  would  rather  have  been  true 
to  the  trust  than  not.  As  I  sat,  therefore,  gulping  down 
my  tea  as  if  I  relished  it,  it  was  partly  because  of  my  pro- 
tective instinct  toward  the  exquisite  creature  before  me 
who  might  not  know  how  to  protect  herself — and  partly 
because  I  couldn't  help  it.  Mr.  Grainger  could  order  me 
to  go,  but  until  he  did  I  meant  to  go  on  eating. 

Probably  because  of  the  insistence  of  my  presence  Mrs. 
Brokenshire  felt  obliged  to  begin  to  talk  again.  I  did  my 

194 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

best  not  to  listen,  but  fragments  of  her  sentences  came  to 
me. 

' '  My  mother  spent  a  few  weeks  with  us  in  August.  I — I 
don't  think  she  and — and  Mr.  Brokenshire  get  on  so  well." 

Almost  for  the  first  time  he  was  interested  in  what  she 
said  rather  than  in  her. 

"What's  the  trouble?" 

"Oh,  I  don't  know — the  whole  thing."  A  long  pause 
ensued,  during  which  their  eyes  rested  on  each  other  in 
mute  questioning.  "  She's  changed,  mamma  is." 

"Changed  in  what  way?" 

"Oh,  I  don't  know.  I — I  suppose  she  sees  that  she — 
she — miscalculated. ' ' 

It  was  his  turn  to  ruminate  silently,  and  when  he  spoke 
at  last  it  was  as  if  throwing  up  to  the  surface  but  one  of  a 
deep  undercurrent  of  thoughts. 

"After  the  pounding  I  got  three  years  ago  she  didn't 
believe  I'd  come  back." 

She  accepted  this  without  comment.  Before  speaking 
again  she  sent  me  another  of  her  frightened,  pleading 
looks. 

"She  always  liked  you  better  than  any  one  else." 

He  seconded  the  glance  in  my  direction  as  he  said,  with 
a  grim  smile: 

"Which  didn't  prevent  her  going  to  the  highest  bidder." 

She  colored  and  sighed. 

"You  wouldn't  be  so  hard  on  her  if  you  knew  what  a 
,5ght  she  had  to  make  during  papa's  lifetime.  We  were 
edways  in  debt.  You  knew  that,  didn't  you?  Poor  mam- 
ma used  to  say  she'd  save  me  from  that  if  she  never — " 

I  lost  the  rest  of  the  sentence  by  deliberately  rattling  the 
tea  things  in  pouring  myself  a  third  or  a  fourth  cup  of  tea. 
Nothing  but  disconnected  words  reached  me  after  that, 

195 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

but  I  caught  the  name  of  Madeline  Pyne.  I  knew  who 
she  was,  having  heard  her  story  da,y  by  day  as  it  unfolded 
itself  during  my  first  weeks  with  Mrs.  Rossiter.  It  was  a 
simple  tale  as  tales  go  in  the  twentieth  century.  Mrs. 
Pyne  had  been  Mrs.  Grimshaw.  While  she  was  Mrs. 
Grimshaw  she  had  spent  three  days  at  a  seaside  resort 
with  Mr.  Pyne.  The  law  having  been  invoked,  she  had 
changed  her  residence  from  the  house  of  Mr.  Grimshaw  in 
Seventy-fifth  Street  to  that  of  Mr.  Pyne  in  Seventy- 
seventh  Street,  and  likewise  changed  her  name.  Only  a 
very  discerning  eye  could  now  have  told  that  in  the  opinion 
of  society  there  was  a  difference  between  her  and  Caesar's 
wife.  The  drama  was  sufficiently  recent  to  make  the  topic 
a  natural  one  for  an  interchange  of  confidences.  That 
confidences  were  being  interchanged  I  could  see;  that 
from  those  confidences  certain  terrifying,  passionate  deduc- 
tions were  being  drawn  silently  I  could  also  see.  I  could 
see  without  hearing;  I  didn't  need  to  hear.  I  could  tell  by 
her  pallor  and  his  embarrassment  how  each  read  the  mind 
of  the  other,  how  each  was  tempted  and  how  each  recoiled. 
I  knew  that  neither  pointed  the  moral  of  the  parable,  for 
the  reason  that  it  stared  them  in  the  face. 

Because  that  subject,  too,  was  exhausted,  or  because 
they  had  come  to  a  place  where  they  could  say  no  more, 
they  sat  silent  again.  They  looked  at  each  other;  they 
looked  at  me;  neither  would  take  the  responsibility  of 
giving  me  a  further  hint  to  go.  Much  as  they  desired  my 
going,  I  was  sure  they  were  both  afraid  of  it.  I  might  be  a 
nuisance  and  yet  I  was  a  safeguard.  They  were  too  near 
the  brink  of  danger  not  to  feel  that,  after  all,  there  was 
something  in  having  the  safeguard  there. 

A  few  minutes  later  Mrs.  Brokenshire  flew  to  shelter 
herself  behind  this  protection.  She  fluttered  softly  to 

196 


THE   HIGH   HEART 

i 

my  side,  beginning  again  to  talk  of  Hugh.  Knowing  by 
this  time  that  her  interest  in  him  was  only  a  blind  for  her 
frightened  essays  in  passion,  I  took  up  the  subject  but 
half-heartedly. 

"I've  the  money  here,*'  she  confided  to  me,  "if  you'll 
only  take  charge  of  it." 

When  I  had  declined  to  do  this,  for  the  reasons  I  had 
already  given,  her  face  brightened. 

"Then  we  can  talk  it  over  again."  She  rose  as  she 
spoke.  "I  can't  stay  any  longer  now — but  we'll  talk  it 
over  again.  Let  me  see!  This  is  Tuesday.  If  I  came — " 

"I'm  always  at  the  Hotel  Mary  Chilton  after  six,"  I 
said,  significantly. 

I  smiled  inwardly  at  the  way  in  which  she  took  this 
information. 

"Oh,  I'll  come  before  that — and  I  sha'n't  keep  you — 
just  to  talk  about  Hugh — and  see  if  he  won't  take  the 
money — perhaps  on — on  Thursday." 

As  nominally  she  had  come  to  see  me,  nominally  it  was 
my  place  to  accompany  her  to  the  door.  In  this  at  least  I 
got  my  cue,  walking  the  few  paces  with  her,  while  she  held 
my  hand.  I  gathered  that,  the  minutes  of  temptation 
being  past,  she  bore  me  some  gratitude  for  having  helped 
her  over  them.  At  any  rate,  she  pressed  my  fingers  and 
gave  me  wistful,  teary  smiles,  till  at  last  she  was  out  in  the 
lighted  street  and  I  had  closed  the  door  behind  her. 

It  was  only  half  past  five,  and  I  had  still  thirty  minutes 
to  fill  in.  As  I  turned  back  into  the  room  I  found  Mr. 
Grainger  walking  aimlessly  up  and  down,  inspecting  a  bit 
of  lustrous  faience  or  the  backs  of  a  row  of  books,  and 
making  me  feel  that  there  was  something  he  wished  to 
say.  His  movements  were  exactly  those  of  a  man  screwing 
up  his  courage  or  trying  to  find  words. 

197 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

The  simplest  thing  I  could  do  was  to  sit  down  at  my 
desk  and  make  a  feint  at  writing.  I  seemed  to  be  ignoring 
my  employer's  presence,  but  in  reality,  as  I  watched  him 
from  under  my  lids,  I  was  getting  a  better  impression  of 
him  than  on  any  previous  occasion. 

There  was  nothing  Olympian  about  him  as  there  was 
about  Howard  Brokenshire.  He  was  too  young  to  be 
Olympian,  being  not  more  than  thirty-eight.  He  struck 
me,  indeed,  as  just  a  big,  sinewy  man  of  the  type  which 
fights  and  hunts  and  races  and  loves,  and  has  dumb,  un- 
comprehended  longings  which  none  of  these  pursuits  can 
satisfy.  In  this  he  was  English  more  than  American, 
and  Scottish  more  than  English.  He  was  certainly  not 
the  American  business  man  as  seen  in  hotel  lobbies  and  on 
the  stage.  He  might  have  been  classed  as  the  American 
romantic — an  explorer,  a  missionary,  or  a  shooter  of  big 
game,  according  to  taste  and  income.  Larry  Strangways 
said  that  among  Americans  you  most  frequently  met  his 
like  in  East  Africa,  Manchuria,  or  Brazil.  That  he  was  in 
business  in  New  York  was  an  accident  of  tradition  and 
inheritance.  Just  as  an  Englishman  who  might  have  been 
a  soldier  or  a  solicitor  is  a  country  gentleman  because  his 
father  has  left  him  landed  estates,  so  Stacy  Grainger  had 
become  a  financier. 

As  a  financier,  I  understood  he  helped  to  furnish  the 
money  in  undertakings  in  which  other  men  did  the  work. 
In  this  respect  the  direction  his  interests  took  was  what 
might  have  been  expected  of  so  virile  a  character — steel, 
iron,  gunpowder,  shells,  the  founding  of  cannon,  the  build- 
ing of  war-ships;  the  forceful,  the  destructive.  I  gathered 
from  Mr.  Strangways  that  he  was  forever  making  journeys 
to  Washington,  to  Pittsburg,  to  Cape  Breton,  wherever 
money  could  be  invested  in  mighty  conquering  things.  It 

198 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

was  these  projects  that  Howard  Brokenshire  had  attacked 
so  savagely  as  almost  to  bring  him  to  ruin,  though  he  had 
now  re-established  himself  as  strongly  as  before. 

Being  as  terrified  of  him  as  of  his  rival,  I  prayed  inward- 
ly that  he  would  go  away.  Once  or  twice  in  marching  up 
and  down  he  paused  before  my  desk,  and  the  pen  almost 
dropped  from  my  hand.  I  knew  he  was  trying  to  formu- 
late a  hint  that  when  Mrs.  Brokenshire  came  again — 
But  even  on  my  part  the  thought  would  not  go  into  words. 
Words  made  it  gross,  and  it  was  what  he  must  have  dis- 
covered each  time  he  approached  me.  Bach  time  he 
approached  me  I  fancied  that  his  poetic  eye  grew  apolo- 
getic, that  his  shoulders  sagged,  and  that  his  hard,  strong 
mouth  became  weak  before  syllables  that  would  not  pass 
the  lips.  Then  he  would  veer  away,  searching  doubtless 
some  easier  phrase,  some  more  delicate  suggestion,  only 
to  fail  again. 

It  was  a  relief  when,  after  a  last  attempt,  he  passed  into 
the  corridor  leading  to  the  house.  I  could  breathe,  I 
could  think;  I  could  look  back  over  the  last  half -hour  and 
examine  my  conduct.  I  was  not  satisfied  with  it,  because 
I  had  frustrated  love — even  that  kind  of  love;  and  yet  I 
asked  myself  how  I  could  have  acted  differently. 

In  substance  I  asked  the  same  of  Larry  Strangways 
when  he  came  to  dine  with  me  next  day.  Hugh  being  in 
Philadelphia  on  one  of  his  pathetic  cruises  after  work,  I 
had  invited  Mr.  Strangways  by  telephone,  begging  him  to 
come  on  the  ground  that,  having  got  me  into  this  trouble, 
he  must  advise  me  as  to  getting  out. 

"I  didn't  get  you  into  the  trouble,"  he  smiled  across 
the  table.  ' '  I  only  helped  to  get  you  the  job. ' ' 

"But  when  you  got  me  the  job,  as  you  call  it — " 

"  I  knew  you  would  be  able  to  do  the  work." 
14  199 


THE   HIGH   HEART 

"And  did  you  think  the  work  would  be — this?" 

"I  couldn't  tell  anything  about  that.  I  simply  knew 
you  could  do  the  work — from  all  the  points  of  view." 

"And  do  you  think  I've  done  it?" 

"I  know  you've  done  it.  You  couldn't  do  anything 
else.  I  won't  go  back  of  that." 

If  my  heart  gave  a  sudden  leap  at  these  words  it  was 
because  of  the  tone.  It  betrayed  that  quality  behind  the 
tone  to  which  I  had  been  responding,  and  of  which  I  had 
been  afraid,  ever  since  I  knew  the  man.  By  a  great  effort 
I  kept  my  words  on  the  casual,  friendly  plane,  as  I  said: 

"Your  confidence  is  flattering,  but  it  doesn't  help  me. 
What  I  want  to  know  is  this:  Assuming  that  they  love 
each  other,  should  I  allow  myself  to  be  used  as  the  pretext 
for  their  meetings?" 

"  Does  it  do  you  any  harm?" 

"Does  it  do  them  any  good?" 

"Couldn't  you  let  that  be  their  affair?" 

"How  can  I,  when  I'm  dragged  into  it?" 

"If  you're  only  dragged  into  it  to  the  extent  of  this 
afternoon — " 

' '  Only !    You  can  use  that  word  of  a  situation — ' ' 

"  In  which  you  played  propriety." 

"Oh,  it  wasn't  playing." 

"Yes,  it  was;  it  was  playing  the  game — as  they  only 
play  it  who  aren't  quitters  but  real  sports." 

"But  I'm  not  a  sport.  I've  the  quitter  in  me.  I'm 
even  thinking  of  flinging  up  the  position — " 

"And  leaving  them  to  their  fate." 

I  smiled. 

"  Couldn't  I  let  that  be  their  affair?" 

He,  too,  smiled,  his  head  thrown  back,  his  white  teeth 
gleaming. 

200 


THE   HIGH   HEART 

"You  think  you've  caught  me,  don't  you?  But  you've 
got  the  shoe  on  the  wrong  foot.  I  said  just  now  that  it 
might  be  their  affair  as  to  whether  or  not  it  did  them  any 
good  to  have  you  as  the  pretext  of  their  meetings;  but 
it's  surely  your  affair  when  you  say  they  sha'n't.  Their 
meetings  will  be  one  thing  so  long  as  they  have  you; 
whereas  without  you — " 

"Then  you  think  they'll  keep  meeting  in  any  case?" 

"I've  nothing  to  say  about  that.  I  limit  myself  to  be- 
lieving that  in  any  situation  that  requires  skilful  handling 
your  first  name  is  resourcefulness." 

I  shifted  my  ground. 

"Oh,  but  when  it's  such  an  odious  situation!" 

"No  situation  is  odious  in  which  you're  a  participant, 
just  as  no  view  is  ugly  where  there's  a  garden  full  of 
flowers." 

He  went  on  with  his  dinner  as  complacently  as  if  he  had 
not  thrown  me  into  a  state  of  violent  inward  confusion. 
All  I  could  do  was  to  summon  Hugh's  image  from  the 
shades  of  memory  into  which  it  had  withdrawn,  and  beg 
it  to  keep  me  true  to  him.  The  thought  of  being  false  to 
the  man  to  whom  I  had  actually  owned  my  love  outraged 
in  me  every  sentiment  akin  to  single-heartedness.  In  a 
kind  of  desperation  I  dragged  Hugh's  name  into  the  con- 
versation, and  yet  in  doing  so  I  merely  laid  myself  open 
to  another  shock. 

"You  can't  be  in  love  with  him!" 

The  words  were  the  same  as  Mrs.  Billing's ;  the  emphasis 
was  similar. 

"I  am,"  I  declared,  bluntly,  not  so  much  to  contradict 
the  speaker  as  to  fortify  myself. 

"You  may  think  you  are — " 

"Well,  if  I  think  I  am,  isn't  it  the  same  thing  as — " 
201 


THE   HIGH   HEART 

"Lord,  no!  not  with  love!  Love  is  the  most  deceptive 
of  the  emotions — to  people  who  haven't  had  much  experi- 
ence of  its  tricks." 

"Have  you?" 

He  met  this  frankly. 

"No;  nor  you.  That's  why  you  can  so  easily  take  your- 
self in." 

I  grew  cold  and  dignified. 

"If  you  think  I'm  taking  myself  in  when  I  say  that  I'm 
in  love  with  Hugh  Brokenshire — " 

"That's  certainly  it." 

Though  I  knew  my  cheeks  were  flaming  a  dahlia  red,  I 
forced  myself  to  look  him  in  the  eyes. 

"Then  I'm  afraid  it  would  be  useless  to  try  to  convince 
you — " 

He  nodded. 

"Quite!" 

"  So  that  we  can  only  let  the  subject  drop." 

He  looked  at  me  with  mock  gravity. 

' '  I  don't  see  that.     It's  an  interesting  topic. ' ' 

"Possibly;  but  as  it  doesn't  lead  us  any  further — " 

' '  But  it  does.     It  leads  us  to  where  we  see  straighter. ' ' 

"Yes,  but  if  I  don't  need  to  see  straighter  than  I  do?" 

"We  all  need  to  see  as  straight  as  we  can." 

"I'm  seeing  as  straight  as  I  can  when  I  say — " 

"Oh,  but  not  as  straight  as  I  can!  I  can  see  that  a 
noble  character  doesn't  always  distinguish  clearly  between 
love  and  kindness,  or  between  kindness  and  loyalty,  or 
between  loyalty  and  self-sacrifice,  and  that  the  higher  the 
heart,  the  more  likely  it  is  to  impose  on  itself.  No  one  is 
so  easily  deceived  as  to  love  and  loving  as  the  man  or  the 
woman  who's  truly  generous." 

"  If  I  was  truly  generous — " 

202 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

"  I  know  what  you  are,"  he  said,  shortly. 

"Then  if  you  know  what  I  am  you  must  know,  too, 
that  I  couldn't  do  other  than  care  for  a  man  who's  given 
up  so  much  for  my  sake." 

4 '  You  couldn't  do  other  than  admire  him.  You  couldn't 
do  other  than  be  grateful  to  him.  You  probably  couldn't 
do  other  than  want  to  stand  by  him  through  thick  and 
thin—" 

"Well,  then?" 

"But  that's  not  love." 

"  If  it  isn't  love  it's  so  near  to  it — " 

"Exactly — which  is  what  I'm  saying.  It's  so  near  it 
that  you  don't  know  the  difference,  and  won't  know 
the  difference  till — till  the  real  thing  affords  you  the 
contrast." 

I  did  my  best  to  be  scornful. 

' '  Really !    You  speak  like  an  expert. ' ' 

"Yes;  an  expert  by  intuition." 

I  was  still  scornful. 

"Only  that?" 

"Only  that.  You  see,"  he  smiled,  "the  expert  by  ex- 
perience has  learnt  a  little;  but  the  expert  by  intuition 
knows  it  all." 

"Then,  when  I  need  information  on  the  subject,  I'll 
come  to  you." 

"And  I'll  promise  to  give  it  to  you  frankly." 

"Thanks,"  I  said,  sweetly.  "But  you'll  wait  till  I 
come,  won't  you?  And  in  the  mean  time,  you'll  not  say 
any  more  about  it." 

"  Does  that  mean  that  I'm  not  to  say  any  more  about  it 
ever — or  only  for  to-night?" 

I  knew,  suddenly,  what  the  question  meant  to  me.  I 
took  time  to  see  that  I  was  shutting  a  door  which  my 

203 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

heart  cried  out  to  have  left  open.  But  I  answered,  still 
sweetly  and  with  a  smile: 

"Suppose  we  make  it  that  you  won't  say  any  more 
about  it — ever?" 

He  gazed  at  me;  I  gazed  at  him.  A  long  half-minute 
went  by  before  he  uttered  the  words,  very  slowly  and 
deliberately: 

" I  won't  say  any  more  about  it — for  to-night." 


CHAPTER  XIV 

ON  Thursday  Mr.  Grainger  came  to  the  library  to 
tea,  but  notwithstanding  her  suggestion  Mrs.  Broken- 
shire  did  not.    She  came,  however,  on  Friday  when  he  did 
not.     For  some  time  after  that  he  came  daily. 

Toward  me  his  manner  had  little  variation;  he  was 
courteous  and  distant.  I  cannot  say  that  he  ever  had  tea 
with  me,  for  even  if  he  accepted  a  cup,  which  he  did  from 
time  to  time,  as  if  keeping  up  a  role,  he  carried  it  to  some 
distant  corner  of  the  room  where  he  was  either  examining 
the  objects  or  making  their  acquaintance.  He  came  about 
half  past  four  and  went  about  half  past  five,  always  ap- 
pearing from  the  house  and  retiring  by  the  same  way.  In 
the  house  itself,  as  I  understood  from  Mrs.  Daly,  he  dis- 
played an  interest  he  had  not  shown  for  years. 

"It's  out  of  wan  room  and  into  another,  and  raisin'  the 
shades  and  pushin'  the  furniture  about,  till  you'd  swear 
he  was  goin'  to  be  married." 

I  thought  of  Mr.  Pyne,  wondering  if,  before  his  trip  to 
Atlantic  City  with  Mrs.  Grimshaw,  he,  too,  had  wandered 
about  his  house,  appraising  its  possibilities  from  the  point 
of  view  of  a  new  mistress. 

On  the  Friday  when  Mrs.  Brokenshire  came  and  Mr. 
Grainger  did  not  she  made  no  comment  on  his  non- 
appearance.  She  even  sustained  with  some  success  the 
fiction  that  her  visit  was  on  my  account.  Only  her  soft 

205 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

eyes  turned  with  a  quick  light  toward  the  door  leading  to 
the  house  at  every  sound  that  might  have  been  a  footstep. 

When  she  talked  it  was  chiefly  about  Mr.  Brokenshire. 

"It's  telling  on  him — all  this  trouble  about  Hugh." 

I  was  curious. 

"Telling  on  him  in  what  way?" 

"It's  made  him  older — and  grayer — and  the  trouble 
with  his  eye  comes  oftener." 

It  seemed  to  me  that  I  saw  an  opportunity. 

"Then  why  doesn't  he  give  in?" 

"Give  in?  Mr.  Brokenshire?  Why,  he  never  gave  in 
in  his  life." 

"But  if  he  suffers?" 

"He'd  rather  suffer  than  give  in.  He's  not  an  unkind 
man,  not  really,  so  long  as  he  has  his  own  way;  but  once 
he's  thwarted — " 

"Every  one  has  to  be  thwarted  some  time." 

"He'd  agree  to  that;  but  he'd  say  every  one  but  him. 
That's  why,  when  he  first  met — met  me — and  my  mother 
at  that  time  meant  to  have  me — to  have  me  marry  some 
one  else —  You  knew  that,  didn't  you?" 

I  reminded  her  that  she  had  told  me  so  among  the  rocks 
at  Newport. 

"  Did  I?  Perhaps  I  did.  It's — it's  rather  on  my  mind. 
I  had  to  change  so — so  suddenly.  But  what  I  was  going 
to  say  was  that  when  Mr.  Brokenshire  saw  that  mamma 
meant  me  to  marry  some  one  else,  and  that  I — that  I 
wanted  to,  there  was  nothing  he  didn't  do.  It  was  in  the 
papers — and  everything.  But  nothing  would  stop  him 
till  he'd  got  what  he  wanted." 

I  pumped  up  my  courage  to  say: 

"You  mean,  till  you  gave  it  to  him." 

She  bit  her  lip. 

206 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

"Mamma  gave  it  to  him.  I  had  to  do  as  I  was  told. 
You'd  say,  I  suppose,  that  I  needn't  have  done  it,  but  you 
don't  know."  She  hesitated  before  going  on.  "It — it 
was  money.  We — we  had  to  have  it.  Mamma  thought 
that  Mr. — the  man  I  was  to  have  married  first — would 
never  have  any  more.  It  was  all  sorts  of  things  on  the 
Stock  Exchange — and  bulls  and  bears  and  things  like  that. 
There  was  a  whole  week  of  it — and  every  one  knew  it  was 
about  me.  I  nearly  died;  but  mamma  didn't  mind.  She 
enjoyed  it.  It's  the  sort  of  thing  she  would  enjoy.  She 
made  me  go  with  her  to  the  opera  every  night.  Some  one 
always  asked  us  to  sit  in  their  box.  She  put  me  in  the 
front  where  the  audience  watched  me  through  their  opera- 
glasses  more  than  they  did  the  stage — and  I  was  a  kind  of 
spectacle.  There  was  one  night — they  were  singing  the 
'Meistersinger' — when  I  felt  just  like  Eva,  put  up  as  a  prize 
for  whoever  could  win  me.  But  I  was  talking  of  Mr. 
Brokenshire,  wasn't  I?  Do  you  think  his  eye  will  ever  be 
any  better?" 

She  asked  the  question  without  change  of  tone.  I  could 
only  reply  that  I  didn't  know. 

"The  doctor  says — that  is,  he's  told  me — that  in  a  way 
it's  mental.  It's  the  result  of  the  strain  he's  put  upon  his 
nerves  by  overwork  and  awful  tempers.  Of  course,  his 
responsibilities  have  been  heavy,  though  of  late  years  he's 
been  able  to  shift  some  of  them  to  other  people's  shoulders. 
And  then,"  she  went  on,  in  her  sweet,  even  voice,  "what 
happened  about  me — coming  to  him  so  late  in  life — and — 
and  tearing  him  to  pieces  more  violently  than  if  he'd  been 
a  younger  man — young  men  get  over  things — that  made  it 
worse.  Don't  you  see  it  would?" 

I  said  I  could  understand  that  that  might  be  the  effect. 

"Of  course,  if  I  could  really  be  a  wife  to  him — 

207 


THE   HIGH   HEART 

"Well,  can't  you?" 

She  shuddered. 

"He  terrifies  me.  When  he's  there  I'm  not  a  woman 
anymore;  I'm  a  captive." 

"But  since  you've  married  him — " 

"I  didn't  marry  him;  he  married  me.  I  was  as  much  a 
bargain  as  if  I  had  been  bought.  And  now  mamma  sees 
that — that  she  might  have  got  a  better  price." 

I  thought  it  enough  to  say : 

"  That  must  make  it  hard  for  her." 

A  sigh  bubbled  up,  like  that  of  a  child  who  has  been 
crying. 

"It  makes  it  hard  for  me."  She  eyed  me  with  a  long, 
oblique  regard.  "Don't  you  think  it's  awful  when  an 
elderly  man  falls  in  love  with  a  young  girl  who  herself  is  in 
love  with  some  one  else?" 

I  could  only  dodge  that  question. 

"  All  unhappiness  is  awful." 

"Ah,  but  this!  An  elderly  man! — in  love!  Madly  in 
love!  It's  not  natural;  it's  frightful;  and  when  it's  with 
yourself — " 

She  moved  away  from  me  and  began  to  inspect  the 
room.  In  spite  of  her  agitation  she  did  this  more  in  detail 
than  when  she  had  been  there  before,  making  the  round  of 
the  book-shelves  much  as  Mr.  Grainger  himself  was  in  the 
habit  of  doing,  and  gazing  without  comment  on  the  Persian 
and  Italian  potteries.  It  was  easy  to  place  her  as  one  of 
those  women  who  live  surrounded  by  beautiful  things  to 
which  they  pay  no  attention.  Mr.  Brokenshire's  richly 
Italianate  dwelling  was  to  her  just  a  house.  It  would  have 
been  equally  just  a  house  had  it  been  Jacobean  or  Louis 
Quinze  or  in  the  fashion  of  the  Brothers  Adam,  and  she 
would  have  seen  little  or  no  difference  in  periods  and 

208 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

styles.  The  books  she  now  looked  at  were  mere  backs; 
they  were  bindings  and  titles.  Since  they  belonged  to 
Stacy  Grainger  she  could  look  at  them  with  soft,  unseeing 
eyes,  thinking  of  him.  That  was  all.  Without  comment 
of  my  own  I  accompanied  her,  watching  the  quick,  bird- 
like  turnings  of  her  head  whenever  she  thought  she  heard  a 
step. 

"It's  nice  for  you  here,"  she  said,  when  at  last  she  gave 
signs  of  going.  "I — I  love  it.  It's  so  quiet — and — and 
safe.  Nobody  knows  I  come  to — to  see  you." 

Her  stammering  emboldened  me  to  take  a  liberty. 

"But  suppose  they  found  out?" 

She  was  as  innocent  as  a  child  as  she  glanced  up  at  me 
and  said: 

' '  It  would  still  be  to  see  you.     There's  no  harm  in  that. ' ' 

"  Even  so,  Mr.  Brokenshire  wouldn't  approve  of  it." 

"But  he'll  never  know.  It's  not  the  sort  of  thing  any 
one  would  think  of.  I  leave  the  motor  down  at  Sixth 
Avenue,  and  this  time  of  year  it's  so  dark.  As  soon  as  I 
heard  Miss  Davis  was  leaving  I  thought  how  nice  the  place 
would  be  for  you." 

Since  it  was  useless  to  make  the  obvious  correction  here, 
I  thanked  her  for  her  kindness,  going  on  to  add: 

"  But  I  don't  want  to  get  into  any  trouble." 

"No,  of  course  not."  She  began  moving  tanrard  the 
door.  "What  kind  of  trouble  were  you  thinking  of?" 

I  wondered  whether  or  not,  having  taken  one  liberty,  I 
could  take  another. 

"When  I  see  my  boat  being  caught  in  the  rapids  I'm 
afraid  there's  a  cataract  ahead." 

It  took  her  some  thirty  seconds  to  seize  the  force  of  this. 
Having  got  it  her  eyes  fell. 

"Oh,  I  see!  And  does  that  mean,"  she  went  on,  her 

209 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

bosom  heaving,  "  that  you're  afraid  of  the  cataract  on  your 
own  account — or  on  mine?" 

I  paused  in  our  slow  drifting  toward  the  door.  She 
was  a  great  lady  in  the  land,  and  I  was  nobody.  I  had 
much  to  risk,  and  I  risked  it. 

"Should  I  offend  you,"  I  asked,  deferentially,  "if  I  said 
— on  yours?" 

For  an  instant  she  became  as  haughty  as  so  sweet  a 
nature  knew  how  to  be,  but  the  prompting  passed. 

"  No;  you  don't  offend  me,"  she  said,  after  a  brief  pause. 
"We're  friends,  aren't  we,  in  spite  of — " 

As  she  hesitated  I  filled  in  the  phrase. 

"  In  spite  of  the  difference  between  us." 

Because  she  was  pursuing  her  own  thoughts  she  allowed 
that  to  pass. 

"People  have  gone  over  cataracts — and  still  lived." 

"Ah,  but  there's  more  to  existence  than  life,"  I  ex- 
claimed, promptly. 

"There  was  a  friend  of  my  own,"  she  continued,  without 
immediate  reference  to  my  observation;  "at  least  she  was 
a  friend — I  suppose  she  is  still — her  name  was  Madeline 
Grimshaw — " 

"Yes,  Mrs.  Pyne;  but  she  wasn't  Mrs.  Brokenshire." 

"No;  she  never  was  so  unhappy."  She  pressed  her 
handkerchief  against  the  two  great  tears  that  rolled  down 
her  cheeks.  "She  did  love  Mr.  Grimshaw  at  one  time, 
whereas  I — " 

"But  you  say  he's  kind." 

"Oh  yes.  It  isn't  that.  He's  more  than  kind.  He'd 
•  smother  me  with  things  I'd  like  to  have.  It's — it's  when 
he  comes  near  me — when  he  touches  me — and — and  his 
eye!" 

I  knew  enough  of  physical  repulsion  to  be  able  to  change 

2IC 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

my  line  of  appeal.     "But  do  you  think  you'd  gain  any- 
thing if  you  made  him  unhappy — now?" 

She  looked  at  me  wonderingly. 

"I  shouldn't  think  you'd  plead  for  him." 

I  had  ventured  so  far  that  I  could  go  a  little  farther. 

"I  don't  think  I'm  pleading  for  him  so  much  as  for  you." 

' '  Why  do  you  plead  for  me  ?  Do  you  think  I  should  be 
—sorry?" 

"If  you  did  what  I  imagine  you're  contemplating — 
yes." 

She  surprised  me  by  admitting  my  implication. 

"Even  if  I  did,  I  couldn't  be  sorrier  than  I  am." 

"Oh,  but  existence  is  more  than  joy  and  sorrow." 

"You  said  just  now  that  it  was  more  than  life.  I  sup- 
pose you  mean  that  it's  love." 

"  I  should  say  that  it's  more  than  love." 

"Why,  what  can  it  be?" 

I  smiled  apologetically. 

"  Mightn't  it  be— right?" 

She  studied  me  with  an  air  of  angelic  sweetness. 

"Oh  no,  I  could  never  believe  that." 

And  she  went  more  resolutely  toward  the  door. 

Hugh  returned  in  good  spirits  from  Philadelphia.  He 
had  been  well  received  His  name  had  secured  him  much 
the  same  welcome  as  that  accorded  him  on  his  first  excur- 
sions into  Wall  Street.  I  didn't  tell  him  I  feared  that  the 
results  would  be  similar,  for  I  saw  that  he  was  cheered. 

To  verify  the  love  I  had  acknowledged  to  him  more  than 
once,  I  was  eager  to  look  at  him  again.  I  found  a  man  thin- 
ner and  older  and  shabbier  than  the  Hugh  who  first  at- 
tracted my  attention  by  being  kind  to  me.  I  could  have 
borne  with  his  being  thinner  and  older;  but  that  he  should 
be  shabbier  wrung  my  heart. 

211 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

I  considered  myself  engaged  to  him.  That  as  yet  I  had 
not  spoken  the  final  word  was  a  detail,  in  my  mind,  con- 
sidering that  I  had  so  often  rested  in  his  arms  and  pillowed 
my  head  on  his  shoulder.  The  fact,  too,  that  when  I  had 
first  allowed  myself  those  privileges  I  had  taken  him  to  be 
a  strong  character — the  shadow  of  a  rock  in  a  thirsty  land, 
I  had  called  him — and  that  I  now  saw  he  was  a  weak  one, 
bound  me  to  him  the  more  closely.  I  had  gone  to  him 
because  I  needed  him;  but  now  that  I  saw  he  needed  me  I 
was  sure  I  could  never  break  away  from  him. 

He  dined  with  me  at  the  Mary  Chilton  on  the  evening  of 
his  return,  sitting  where  Larry  Strangways  had  sat  only 
forty-eight  hours  previously.  I  was  sorry  then  that  I  had 
not  changed  the  table.  To  be  face  to  face  with  two  men, 
on  exactly  the  same  spot,  on  occasions  so  near  together,  in 
conditions  so  alike,  gave  me  a  sense  of  faithlessness. 
Though  I  wanted  nothing  so  much  as  to  be  honest  with 
them  both,  I  was  afraid  of  being  so  with  neither;  and  yet 
for  this  I  hardly  knew  where  to  place  the  blame.  I  suf- 
fered for  Hugh  because  of  Larry  Strangways,  and  I  suffered 
for  Larry  Strangways  because  of  Hugh.  If  I  suffered  for 
myself  I  was  scarcely  aware  of  it,  having  to  give  so  much 
thought  to  them. 

Nevertheless,  I  regretted  that  I  had  not  chosen  another 
table,  and  all  the  more  when  Hugh  brought  the  matter  up. 
He  had  finished  telling  me  of  his  experiences  in  Philadel- 
phia. ' '  Now  what  have  you  been  doing  ?"  he  demanded,  a 
smile  lighting  up  his  tired  face. 

"Oh,  nothing  much — the  same  old  thing." 

"Seen  anybody  in  particular?" 

I  weighed  my  answer  carefully. 

"Nobody  in  particular,  except  Mr.  Strangways." 

He  frowned. 

212 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

"Where  did  you  see  that  fellow?" 

"Right  here." 

' '  Right  here  ?    What  do  you  mean  by  that?" 

"  He  came  to  dine  with  me." 

"Dine  with  you !    And  sat  where  I'm  sitting  now?" 

I  tried  to  take  this  pleasantly. 

"  It's  the  only  place  I've  got  to  ask  any  one  I  want  to 
talk  to." 

"But  why  should  you  want  to  talk  to — to — "  I  saw 
him  struggling  with  the  word,  but  it  came  out — "to  that 
bounder?" 

"He's  a  friend  of  mine,  Hugh.  I've  asked  you  already 
to  remember  that  he's  a  gentleman." 

"Gentleman!  O  Lord!"  He  became  kindly  and  coax- 
ing, leaning  across  the  table  with  an  ingratiating 
smile.  "  Look  here,  little  Alix!  Don't  you  think  that  for 
my  sake  it's  time  you  were  beginning  to  drop  that  lot?" 

""hough  I  revolted  againt  the  expression,  I  pretended  to 
see  nothing  amiss. 

"  You  mean  just  as  Libby  Jaynes  had  to  drop  the  barbers 
and  the  pages  in  the  hotel  when  she  became  Mrs.  Tracy 
Allen." 

He  laughed  nervously. 

"  Oh,  I  don't  go  as  far  as  that.     And  yet  if  I  did—" 

"It  wouldn't  be  too  far."  I  gave  him  the  impression 
that  I  was  thinking  the  question  out.  "But  you  see, 
Hugh,  dear,  I  don't  see  any  difference  between  Mr.  Strang- 
ways — " 

"And  me?" 

"I  wasn't  going  to  say  you,  but  between  Mr.  Strang- 
ways  and  the  people  you'd  like  me  to  know.  Or  rather,  if 
I  do  see  a  difference  it's  that  Mr.  Strangways  is  so  much 
more  a  man  of  the  world  than — than — " 

213 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

Perceiving  my  embarrassment,  he  broke  in: 

"Than  who?" 

I  took  my  courage  in  both  hands. 

"Than  Mr.  Rossiter,  for  example,  or  your  brother,  Mr. 
Jack  Brokenshire,  or  any  of  the  men  I  met  when  I  was  with 
your  sister.  If  I  hadn't  seen  you — the  truest  gentleman  I 
ever  knew — I  shouldn't  have  supposed  that  any  of  them 
belonged  to  the  real  great  world  at  all." 

To  my  relief  he  took  this  good-naturedly. 

"That's  what  we  call  social  inexperience,  little  Alix. 
It's  because  you  don't  know  how  to  distinguish." 

"That  is,  I  don't  know  a  good  thing  when  I  see  it." 

"You  don't  know  that  sort  of  good  thing — the  American 
who  counts.  But  you  can  learn.  And  if  you  learn  you've 
got  to  take  as  a  starting-point  the  fact  that,  just  as  there 
are  things  one  does  and  things  one  doesn't  do,  so  there  are 
people  one  knows  and  people  one  doesn't  know — and  no 
one  can  tell  you  the  reason  why." 

"But  if  one  asked  for  a  reason — " 

"It  would  queer  you  with  the  right  people.  They  don't 
want  a  reason.  If  people  do  want  a  reason — well,  they've 
got  to  stay  out  of  it.  It  was  one  of  the  things  Libby 
Jaynes  picked  up  as  if  she'd  been  born  to  it.  She  knew 
how  to  cut;  she  knew  how  to  cut  dead;  and  she  cut  as  dead 
as  she  knew  how." 

"But,  Hugh,  darling,  I  don't  know  how." 

He  was  all  forbearance. 

"You'll  learn,  sweet."  As  for  the  moment  the  waitress 
was  absent,  he  put  out  his  hand  and  locked  his  fingers 
within  mine.  "You've  got  it  in  you.  Once  you've  had 
a  chance  you'll  knock  Libby  Jaynes  into  a  cocked  hat." 

I  shook  my  head. 

"I'm  not  sure  that  you're  right." 

214 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

"  I  know  I'm  right,  if  you  do  as  I  tell  you:  and  to  begin 
with  you've  got  to  put  that  fellow  Strangways  in  his  place." 

I  let  it  go  at  that,  having  so  many  other  things  to  think 
of  that  any  mere  status  of  my  own  became  of  no  im- 
portance. I  was  willing  that  Hugh  should  marry  me  as 
Tracy  Allen  married  Libby  Jaynes,  or  in  any  other  way,  so 
long  as  I  could  play  my  part  in  the  rest  of  the  drama  with 
right-mindedness.  But  it  was  precisely  that  that  grew 
more  difficult. 

When  Mrs.  Brokenshire  and  Mr.  Grainger  next  met 
under  what  I  can  only  call  my  chaperonage  they  were 
distinctly  more  at  ease.  The  first  stammering,  shame- 
faced awkwardness  was  gone.  They  knew  by  this  time 
what  they  had  to  say  and  said  it.  They  had  also  come  to 
understand  that  if  I  could  not  be  moved  I  might  be  out- 
witted. By  the  simple  expedient  of  wandering  away  on 
the  plea  of  looking  at  this  or  that  decorative  object  they 
obtained  enough  solitude  to  serve  their  purposes.  With- 
out taking  themselves  beyond  my  range  of  vision  they  got 
out  of  earshot. 

As  far  as  that  went  I  was  relieved.  I  was  not  respon- 
sible for  what  they  did,  but  only  for  what  I  did  myself.  I 
was  not  their  keeper;  I  didn't  want  to  be  a  spy  on  them. 
When,  at  a  certain  minute,  as  they  returned  toward  me,  I 
saw  him  pass  a  letter  to  her,  it  was  entirely  by  chance.  I 
reflected  then  that,  while  she  ran  no  risk  in  using  the  mails 
in  writing  to  him,  it  was  not  so  with  him  in  writing  to  her, 
and  that  communications  of  importance  might  have  to 
pass  between  them.  It  was  nothing  to  me.  I  was  sorry 
to  have  surprised  the  act  and  tried  to  dismiss  it  from  my 
mind. 

It  was  repeated,  however,  the  next  time  they  came  and 
many  times  after  that.  Their  comings  settled  into  a  rou- 

15  2I* 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

tine  of  being  twice  a  week,  with  fair  regularity.  Tuesdays 
and  Fridays  were  their  days,  though  not  without  varia- 
tion. It  was  indeed  this  variation  that  saved  the  situation 
on  a  certain  afternoon  when  otherwise  all  might  have  been 
lost. 


CHAPTER  XV 

WE  had  come  to  February,  1914.  During  the  inter- 
vening months  the  conditions  in  which  I  lived  and 
worked  underwent  little  change.  My  days  and  nights 
were  passed  between  the  library  and  the  Mary  Chilton, 
with  few  social  distractions,  though  I  had  some.  Larry 
Strangways's  sister,  Mrs.  Applegate,  had  called  on  me, 
and  her  house,  a  headquarters  of  New  York  philanthropies, 
had  opened  to  me  its  kindly  doors.  Through  Mrs.  Apple- 
gate  one  or  two  other  women  came  to  relieve  my  loneliness, 
and  now  and  then  old  Halifax  friends  visiting  New  York 
took  me  to  theaters  and  to  dinners  at  hotels.  Ethel 
Rossiter  was  as  friendly  as  fear  of  her  father  and  of  social 
conventions  permitted  her  to  be,  and  once  or  twice  when 
she  was  quite  alone  I  lunched  with  her.  On  each  of  these 
occasions  she  had  something  new  to  tell  me. 

The  first  was  that  Hugh  had  met  his  father  accidentally 
face  to  face,  and  that  the  parent  had  cut  the  son.  Of  that 
Hugh  had  told  me  nothing.  According  to  Ethel,  he  was 
more  affected  by  the  incident  than  by  anything  since  the 
beginning  of  his  cares.  He  felt  it  too  deeply  to  speak  of  it 
even  to  me,  to  whom  he  spoke  of  everything. 

It  happened,  I  believe,  at  the  foot  of  the  steps  of  a  club. 
Hugh,  who  was  passing,  saw  his  father  coming  down,  and 
waited.  Howard  Brokenshire  brought  into  play  his  facul- 
ty of  seeing  without  seeing,  and  went  on  majestically, 

217 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

while  Hugh  stared  after  him  with  tears  of  vexation  in  his 
eyes. 

"He  felt  it  the  more,"  Mrs.  Rossiter  stated  in  her  impar- 
tial way,  "because  I  doubt  if  he  had  the  price  of  his  dinner 
in  his  pocket." 

It  was  then  that  she  gave  me  to  understand  that  if  it 
were  not  that  Mildred  was  lending  him  money  he  would 
have  nothing  to  subsist  on  at  all.  Mildred  had  a  little 
from  her  grandfather  Brew,  being  privileged  in  this  respect 
because  she  was  the  only  one  of  the  first  Mrs.  Brokenshire's 
children  born  at  the  time  of  the  grandfather's  demise. 
The  legacy  had  been  a  trifle,  but  from  this  fund,  which  had 
never  been  his  father's,  Hugh  consented  to  take  loans. 

"Hugh,  darling,"  I  said  to  him  the  next  time  I  had 
speech  with  him,  "don't  you  see  now  that  he's  irrecon- 
cilable? He'll  either  starve  you  into  surrender — " 

"Never,"  he  cried,  thumping  the  table  with  his  hand. 

"  Or  else  you  must  take  such  work  as  you  can  get." 

"Such  work  as  I  can  get !  Do  you  know  how  much  that 
would  bring  me  in  a  week?" 

"Even  so,"  I  reasoned,  "you'd  have  work  and  I  should 
have  work,  and  we'd  live." 

He  was  hurt. 

"Americans  don't  believe  in  working  their  women,"  he 
declared,  loftily.  "  If  I  can't  give  you  a  life  in  which  you'll 
have  nothing  at  all  to  do — " 

"But  I  don't  want  a  life  in  which  I'll  have  nothing  at  all 
to  do,"  I  cried.  "Your  idle  women  strike  me  as  a  weak 
point  in  your  national  organization.  It's  like  the  dinner- 
parties I've  seen  at  some  of  your  restaurants  and  hotels — a 
circle  of  men  at  one  table  and  a  circle  of  women  at  another. 
You  revolve  too  much  in  separate  spheres.  Your  women 
have  too  little  to  do  with  business  and  politics  and  your 

218 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

men  with  society  and  the  fine  arts.  I'm  not  used  to  such  a 
pitiless  separation  of  the  sexes.  Don't  let  us  begin  it, 
Hugh,  darling.  Let  me  share  what  you  share — " 

"You  won't  share  anything  sordid,  little  Alix,  I  can  tell 
you  that.  When  you're  my  wife  you'll  have  nothing  to 
think  of  but  having  a  good  time  and  looking  your  pret- 
tiest—" 

"I  should  die  of  it,"  I  exclaimed,  but  this  he  took  as  a 
joke. 

That  had  passed  in  January.  What  Ethel  Rossiter  told 
me  the  next  time  I  lunched  with  her  was  that  Lady  Cecilia 
Boscobel  had  accepted  her  invitation  and  was  expected 
within  a  few  weeks.  She  repeated  what  she  had  already 
said  of  her,  in  exactly  the  same  words. 

"She's  a  good  deal  of  a  girl,  Cissie is."  My  heart  leaped 
and  fell  almost  simultaneously.  If  I  could  only  give  up 
Hugh  in  such  a  way  that  he  would  have  to  give  me  up,  this 
girl  might  help  us  out  of  our  impasse.  Had  Mrs.  Rossiter 
stopped  there  I  might  have  made  some  noble  vow  of  renun- 
ciation; but  she  went  on:  "If  she  wants  Hugh  she'll 
take  him.  Don't  be  under  any  illusion  about  that." 

Though  my  quick  mettle  was  up,  I  said,  docilely: 

"Oh  no,  I'm  not.  But  if  you  mean  taking  him  away 
from  me — well,  a  good  many  people  have  tried  it,  haven't 
they?" 

"Cissie  Boscobel  hasn't  tried  it." 

But  I  was  peaceably  inclined. 

"Oh,  well,"  I  said,  "perhaps  she  won't.  She  may  not 
think  it  worth  her  while." 

"If  you  want  to  know  my  opinion,"  Mrs.  Rossiter  in- 
sisted, as  she  helped  herself  to  the  peas  which  the  rosebud 
Thomas  was  passing,  "I  think  she  will.  Men  aren't  so 
plentiful  over  there  as  you  seem  to  suppose — that  is,  men 

219 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

of  the  kind  they'd  marry.  Lord  Goldborough  has  no 
money  at  all,  as  you  might  say,  and  yet  the  girls  have  to  be 
set  up  in  big  establishments.  You've  only  got  to  look 
at  them  to  see  it.  Cissie  marrying '  a  subaltern  with  a 
thousand  pounds  a  year  isn't  thinkable.  It  wouldn't  dress 
her.  She's  coming  over  here  to  take  a  look  at  Hugh,  and 
if  she  likes  him —  Well,  I  told  you  long  ago  that  you'd  be 
wise  to  snap  up  that  young  Strangways.  He's  much 
better-looking  than  Hugh,  and  more  in  your  own —  Be- 
sides, Jim  says  that  now  that  he's  with" — she  balked  at 
the  name  of  Grainger — "now  that  he's  where  he  is  he's 
beginning  to  make  money.  It  doesn't  take  so  long  when 
people  have  the  brains  for  it." 

All  this  gave  me  a  feeling  of  mingled  curiosity  and  fear 
when,  a  few  weeks  later,  I  came  on  Mrs.  Rossiter  and  Lady 
Cecilia  Boscobel  looking  into  a  shop  window  in  Fifth 
Avenue.  It  was  a  Saturday  afternoon,  the  day  which  I 
had  off  and  on  which  I  made  my  modest  purchases.  It 
was  a  cold,  brisk  day,  with  light  snow  whirling  in  tiny 
eddies  on  the  ground.  I  was  going  northward  on  the 
sunny  side.  At  a  distance  of  some  fifty  yards  I  recognized 
Mrs.  Rossiter's  motor  standing  by  the  curb,  and  cast  my 
eyes  about  for  a  possible  glimpse  of  her.  Moving  away 
from  the  window  of  the  jeweler's  whence  she  had  probably 
come  out,  she  saw  me  approach,  and  turned  at  once  with  a 
word  or  two  to  the  lady  beside  her,  who  also  looked  in  my 
direction.  I  knew  by  intuition  who  Mrs.  Rossiter's  com- 
panion was,  and  that  my  connection  with  the  family  had 
been  explained  to  her. 

Mrs.  Rossiter  made  the  presentation  in  her  usual  off- 
hand way. 

"Oh,  Miss  Adare!  I  want  to  introduce  you  to  Lady 
Cecilia  Boscobel." 

220 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

We  exchanged  civil,  remote,  and  non-committal  saluta- 
tions, each  of  us  with  her  hands  in  her  muff.  My  imme- 
diate impression  was  one  of  color,  as  it  is  when  you  see  old 
Limoges  enamels.  There  was  more  color  in  Lady  Cissie's 
personality  than  in  that  of  any  one  I  have  ever  looked  at. 
Her  hair  was  red — not  auburn  or  copper,  but  red — a 
decorative,  flaming  red.  I  have  often  noticed  how  slight 
is  the  difference  between  beautiful  red  hair  and  ugly. 
Lady  Cissie's  was  of  the  shade  that  is  generally  ugly,  but 
which  in  her  case  was  rendered  glorious  by  the  introduc- 
tion of  some  such  pigment,  gleaming  and  umber,  as  that 
which  gives  the  peculiar  hue  to  Australian  gold.  I  had 
never  seen  such  hair  or  hair  in  such  quantities,  except  in 
certain  pictures  of  the  pre-Raphaelite  brotherhood,  for 
which  I  should  have  supposed  there  could  have  been  no 
earthly  model  had  my  father  not  known  Eleanor  Siddall. 
Lady  Cissie's  eyes  were  gray,  with  a  greenish  light  in  them 
when  she  turned  her  head.  Her  complexion  could  only 
be  compared  to  the  kind  of  carnation  in  which  the  whitest 
of  whites  is  flecked  in  just  the  right  spots  by  the  rosiest 
rose.  In  the  lips,  which  were  full  and  firm,  also  like 
Eleanor  SiddalTs,  the  rose  became  carmine,  to  melt  away 
into  coral-pink  in  the  shell-like  ears.  Her  dress  of  seal- 
brown  broadcloth,  on  which  there  was  a  sheen,  was  relieved 
by  occasional  touches  of  sage-green,  and  the  numerous 
sable  tails  on  her  boa  and  muff  blew  this  way  and  that  way 
in  the  wind.  In  the  small  black  hat,  perched  at  what  I 
can  only  describe  as  a  triumphant  angle,  an  orange  wing 
became  at  the  tip  of  each  tiny  topmost  feather  a  daring 
line  of  scarlet.  Nestling  on  the  sage-green  below  the 
throat  a  row  of  amber  beads  slumbered  and  smoldered 
with  lemon  and  orange  and  ruby  lights  that  now  and  then 
shot  out  rays  of  crimson  or  scarlet  fire. 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

I  thought  of  my  own  costume — naturally.  I  was  in 
gray,  with  inexpensive  black  furs.  An  iridescent  buckle, 
with  hues  such  as  you  see  in  a  pigeon's  neck,  at  the  side  of 
my  black-velvet  toque  was  my  only  bit  of  color.  I  was 
poor  Jenny  Wren  in  contrast  to  a  splendid  bird-of -paradise. 
So  be  it !  I  could  at  least  be  a  foil  to  this  healthy,  vigorous 
young  beauty  who  was  two  inches  taller  than  I,  and  might 
have  my  share  of  the  advantages  which  go  with  all  an- 
tithesis. 

The  talk  was  desultory,  and  in  it  the  English  girl  took  no 
part.  Mrs.  Rossiter  asked  me  where  I  was  going,  what  I 
was  going  for,  and  whether  or  not  she  couldn't  take  me  to 
my  destination  in  her  car.  I  declined  this  offer,  explained 
that  my  errands  were  trivial,  and  examined  Lady  Cissie 
through  the  corner  of  my  eye.  On  her  side  Lady  Cissie 
examined  me  quite  frankly — not  haughtily,  but  distantly 
and  rather  sympathetically.  She  had  come  all  this  dis- 
tance to  take  a  look  at  Hugh,  and  I  was  the  girl  he  loved. 
I  counted  on  the  fact  to  give  poor  Jenny  Wren  her  value, 
and  I  think  it  did.  At  any  rate,  when  I  had  answered  all 
Mrs.  Rossiter's  questions  and  was  moving  off  to  continue 
my  way  up-town,  Lady  Cissie's  rich  lips  quivered  in  a  sort 
of  farewell  smile. 

But  Hugh  showed  little  interest  when  I  painted  her  por- 
trait verbally. 

"Yes,  that's  the  girl,"  he  observed,  indifferently,  "red- 
headed, long-legged,  slashy-colored,  laid  on  a  bit  too 
thick." 

"She's  beautiful,  Hugh." 

"Is  she?  Well,  perhaps  so.  Wouldn't  be  my  style; 
but  every  one  to  his  taste." 

"If  you  saw  her  now — " 

"Oh,  I've  seen  her  often  enough,  just  as  she's  seen  me." 

222 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

"  She  hasn't  seen  you  as  you  are  to-day,  and  neither  have 
you  seen  her.  A  few  years  makes  a  difference." 

He  looked  at  me  quizzically. 

"  Look  here,  little  Alix,  what  are  you  giving  us  ?  Do  you 
think  I'd  turn  you  down  now — for  all  the  Lady  Cissies  in 
the  British  peerage?  Do  you,  now?" 

"  Not,  perhaps,  if  you  put  it  as  turning  me  down — " 

"Well,  as  you  turning  me  down,  then?" 

"Our  outlook  is  pretty  dark,  isn't  it?" 

"Just  wait." 

I  ignored  his  pathetic  boastfulness  to  continue  my  own 
sentence. 

"And  this  prospect  is  so  brilliant.  You'd  have  a  hand- 
some wife,  a  big  income,  a  good  position,  an  important 
family  backing  on  both  sides  of  the  Atlantic — all  of  which 
would  make  you  the  man  you  ought  to  be.  Now  that  I've 
seen  her,  and  rather  guess  that  she'd  take  you,  I  don't  see 
how  I  can  let  you  forfeit  so  much.  I  don't  want  to  make 
you  regret  the  day  you  ever  saw  me — " 

"  Or  regret  yourself  the  day  you  ever  saw  me." 

If  I  took  up  this  challenge  it  was  more  for  his  sake  than 
my  own. 

"Then  suppose  I  accept  that  way  of  putting  it?" 

He  looked  at  me  solemnly,  for  a  second  or  two,  after 
which  he  burst  out  laughing.  That  I  might  have  hesita- 
tions as  to  connecting  myself  with  the  Brokenshires  was 
more  than  he  could  grasp.  He  might  have  minutes  of 
jealousy  of  Larry  Strangways,  but  his  doubt  could  go  no 
further.  It  went  no  further,  even  after  he  had  seen  Lady 
Cecilia  and  they  had  renewed  their  early  acquaintance. 
Ethel  Rossiter  had  managed  that,  of  course  with  her 
father's  connivance. 

"Fine  big  girl,"  Hugh  commended,  "but  too  showy." 

223 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

"She's  not  showy,"  I  contradicted.  "A  thing  isn't 
necessarily  showy  because  it  has  bright  colors.  Tropical 
birds  are  not  showy,  nor  roses,  nor  rubies — " 

"I  prefer  pearls,"  he  said,  quietly.  "You're  a  pearl, 
little  Alix,  the  pearl  of  great  price  for  which  a  man  sells  all 
that  he  has  and  buys  it."  Before  I  could  respond  to  this 
kindly  speech  he  burst  out:  "Good  Lord!  don't  you  sup- 
pose I  can  see  what  it  all  means?  Cissie's  the  gay  arti- 
ficial fly  that's  to  tempt  the  fish  away  from  the  little  silvery 
minnow.  Once  I've  darted  after  the  bit  of  red  and  yellow 
dad  will  have  hooked  me.  That's  his  game.  Don't  you 
think  I  see  it?  What  dad  wants  is  not  that  I  shall  have  a 
wife  I  can  love,  but  that  he  shall  have  a  daughter-in-law 
with  a  title.  You'd  have  to  be,  well,  what  I  hope  you 
will  be  some  day,  to  know  what  that  means  to  a  man  like 
dad.  A  son-in-law  with  a  title — that's  as  common  as 
beans  to  rich  Americans;  but  a  daughter-in-law  with  a 
title — a  real,  genuine  British  title,  as  sound  as  the  Bank  of 
England — that's  something  new.  You  can  count  on  the 
fingers  of  one  hand  the  American  families  that  have  got 
'em" — he  named  them,  one  in  Philadelphia,  one  in  Chi- 
cago, one  or  two  in  New  York — "and  dad's  as  mad  as 
blazes  that  he  didn't  think  of  the  thing  first.  If  he  had, 
he'd  have  put  Jack  on  to  it,  in  spite  of  all  Pauline's  money ; 
but  since  it's  too  late  for  that  I  must  toe  the  mark.  Well, 
I'm  not  going  to,  do  you  see ?  I'm  going  to  choose  my  own 
wife,  and  I've  chosen  her.  Birth  and  position  mean  noth- 
ing to  me,  for  I'm  as  much  of  a  Socialist  as  ever — or 
almost." 

With  such  resolution  as  this  there  was  no  way  of  reason- 
ing, so  that  I  could  only  go  on,  wondering  and  hoping  and 
doing  what  I  could  for  the  best. 

What  I  could  do  for  the  best  included  watching  over 

224 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

Mrs.  Brokenshire.  As  winter  progressed  the  task  became 
harder  and  I  grew  the  more  anxious.  So  far  no  one  sus- 
pected her  visits  to  Mr.  Grainger's  library,  and  to  the 
best  of  my  knowledge  her  imprudence  ended  there. 
Further  than  to  wander  about  the  room  the  lovers  never 
tried  to  elude  me,  though  now  and  then  I  could  see, 
without  watching  them,  that  he  took  her  hand.  Once 
or  twice  I  thought  he  kissed  her,  but  of  that  I  was 
happily  not  sure.  It  was  a  relief,  too,  that  as  the  days 
grew  longer  occasional  visitors  dropped  in  while  they  were 
there.  The  old  gentleman  interested  in  prints  and  the 
lady  who  studied  Shakespeare  came  not  infrequently. 
There  were  couples,  too,  who  wandered  in,  seeking  for 
their  own  purposes  a  half-hour  of  privacy.  After  all,  the 
place  was  almost  a  public  one  to  those  who  knew  how  to 
find  it;  and  I  was  quick  enough  to  see  that  in  this  very 
publicity  lay  a  measure  of  salvation. 

Mrs.  Brokenshire  was  as  quick  to  perceive  this  as  I. 
When  there  were  other  people  there  she  was  more  at  ease. 
Nothing  was  simpler  then  than  for  Mr.  Grainger  and  her- 
self to  be  visitors  like  the  rest,  strolling  about  or  sitting  in 
shady  corners,  and  keeping  themselves  unrecognized. 
There  was  thus  a  Thursday  in  the  early  part  of  March 
when  I  didn't  expect  them,  because  it  was  a  Thursday. 
They  came,  however,  only  to  find  the  old  gentleman  in- 
terested in  prints  and  the  lady  who  studied  Shakespeare 
already  on  the  spot.  I  was  never  so  glad  of  anything  as  of 
t  .7  '•  .-cidental  happening  when  a  surprising  thing  occurred 
*o  T'  "^  r  ^xt  day. 

±  •  \ .as  between  half  past  five  and  six  on  the  Friday.  As 
the  lovers  had  come  on  the  preceding  day,  I  knew  they 
would  not  appear  on  this,  and  was  beginning  to  make  my 
preparations  for  going  home.  I  was  actually  pinning  on 

225 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

my  hat  when  the  soft  opening  of  the  outer  door  startled 
me.  A  soft  step  sounded  in  the  little  inner  vestibule,  and 
then  there  came  an  equally  soft,  breathless  standing  still. 

My  hands  were  paralyzed  in  their  upward  position  at 
my  hat;  my  heart  pounded  so  that  I  could  hear  it;  my 
eyes  were  wide  with  terror  as  they  looked  back  at  me  from 
the  splendid  Venetian  mirror  before  which  I  stood.  I 
was  always  afraid  of  robbers  or  murderers,  even  though  I 
had  the  wrought-iron  grille  between  me  and  them,  and 
Mr.  or  Mrs.  Daly  within  call. 

Knowing  that  there  was  nothing  for  it  but  to  go  and  see 
who  was  there,  and  suspecting  that  it  might  be  Mrs. 
Brokenshire,  after  all,  I  dragged  my  feet  across  the  few 
intervening  paces.  It  was  not  Mrs.  Brokenshire.  It  was 
a  man,  a  man  who  looked  inordinately  big  and  majestic  in 
this  little  decorative  pen.  I  needed  a  few  seconds  in 
which  to  gaze,  a  few  seconds  in  which  to  adjust  my  facul- 
ties, before  grasping  the  fact  that  I  saw  Mrs.  Brokenshire's 
husband.  On  his  side,  he  needed  something  of  the  sort 
himself.  Of  all  people  in  the  world  with  whom  he  expected 
to  find  himself  face  to  face  I  am  sure  I  must  have  been  the 
last. 

I  touched  the  spring,  however,  and  the  little  portal 
opened.  It  opened  and  he  stepped  in.  He  stepped  in  and 
stood  still.  He  stood  still  and  looked  round  him.  If 
I  dare  to  say  it  of  one  who  was  never  timid  in  his  life,  he 
looked  round  him  timidly.  His  eyes  showed  it,  his  atti- 
tude showed  it.  He  had  come  on  a  hateful  errand;  his 
feet  were  on  hateful  ground.  He  expected  to  see  some- 
thing more  than  me — and  emptiness. 

I  got  back  some  of  my  own  self-control  by  being  sorry 
for  him,  giving  no  indication  of  ever  having  met  him  be- 
fore. 

226 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

"You'd  like  to  see  the  library,  sir,"  I  said,  as  I  should 
have  said  it  to  any  chance  visitor. 

He  dropped  into  a  large  William  and  Mary  chair,  one 
of  the  show  pieces,  and  placed  his  silk  hat  on  the  floor. 

"  I'll  sit  down,"  he  murmured  less  to  me  than  to  himself. 
His  stick  he  dandled  now  across  and  now  between  his 
knees. 

The  tea  things  were  still  on  the  table. 

"Would  you  like  a  cup  of  tea?"  I  asked,  in  genuine 
solicitude. 

"Yes — no."  I  think  he  would  have  liked  it,  but  he 
probably  remembered  whose  tea  it  was.  "  No, "  he  repeat- 
ed, with  decision. 

He  breathed  heavily,  with  short,  puffy  gasps.  I  re- 
called then  that  Mrs.  Brokenshire  had  said  that  his  heart 
had  been  affected.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  he  put  his  gloved 
left  hand  up  to  it,  as  people  do  who  feel  something  giving 
way  within. 

To  relieve  the  embarrassment  of  the  situation  I  said: 

"I  could  turn  on  all  the  lights  and  you  could  see  the 
library  without  going  round  it." 

Withdrawing  the  hand  at  his  heart,  he  raised  it  in  the 
manner  with  which  I  was  familiar. 

"Sit  down,"  he  commanded,  as  sternly  as  his  shortness 
of  breath  allowed. 

The  companion  William  and  Mary  chair  being  near,  I 
slipped  into  it.  Having  him  in  three-quarters  profile,  I 
could  study  him  without  doing  it  too  obviously,  and  could 
verify  Mrs.  Brokenshire's  statements  that  Hugh's  affairs 
were  "telling  on  him."  He  was  perceptibly  older,  in  the 
way  in  which  people  look  older  all  at  once  after  having 
long  kept  the  semblance  of  youth.  The  skin  had  grown 
baggy,  the  eyes  tired;  the  beard  and  mustache,  though  as 

227 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

well  cared  for  as  ever,  more  decidedly  mixed  with  gray.  It 
was  indicative  of  something  that  had  begun  to  disintegrate 
in  his  self-esteem,  that  when  his  poor  left  eye  screwed  up 
he  turned  the  terrifying  right  one  on  me  with  no  effort 
to  conceal  the  grimace. 

As  it  was  for  him  to  break  the  silence,  I  waited  in  my 
huge  ornamental  chair,  hoping  he  would  begin. 

"What  are  you  doing  here?" 

The  voice  had  lost  none  of  its  soft  staccato  nor  of  its 
whip-lash  snap. 

"I'm  Mr.  Grainger's  librarian,"  I  replied,  meekly. 

"Since  when?"  he  panted. 

"Since  not  long  after  I  left  Mrs.  Rossiter." 

He  took  his  time  to  think  another  question  out. 

"How  did  your  employer  come  to  know  about  you?" 

I  explained,  as  though  he  had  had  no  knowledge  of  the 
fact,  that  Mrs.  Rossiter  had  employed  for  her  boy,  Broken- 
shire,  a  tutor  named  Strangways.  This  Mr.  Strangways 
had  attracted  Mr.  Grainger's  attention  by  some  articles 
he  had  written  for  the  financial  press.  An  introduction 
had  followed,  after  which  Mr.  Grainger  had  engaged  the 
young  man  as  his  secretary.  Hearing  that  Mr.  Grainger 
had  need  of  a  librarian,  Mr.  Strangways  had  suggested  me. 

I  could  see  suspicion  in  the  way  in  which  he  eyed  me  as 
well  as  in  his  words. 

"  Had  you  no  other  recommendation?" 

"No,  sir,"  I  said,  simply,  "none  that  Mr.  Grainger  ever 
told  me  of." 

He  let  that  pass. 

"And  what  do  you  do  here?" 

"I  show,  the  library  to  visitors.  If  any  one  wishes  a 
particular  book,  or  to  look  at  engravings,  I  help  him  to  find 
what  he  wants."  I  thought  it  well  to  keep  up  the  fiction 

228 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

that  he  had  come  as  a  sight-seer.     "If  you'd  care  to  go 
over  the  place  now,  sir — " 

His  hand  went  up  in  a  majestic  waving  aside  of  this 
courtesy. 

"And  have  you  many  visitors  to  the — to  the  library?" 
Though  I  saw  the  implication,  I  managed  to  elude  it. 
"Yes,  sir,  taking  one  day  with  another.     It  depends  a 
little  on  the  weather  and  the  time  of  year." 

"Are  they  chiefly  strangers — or — or  do  you  ever  see 
any  one  you've — you've  seen  before?" 

His  difficulty  in  phrasing  this  question  made  me  even 
more  sorry  for  him  than  I  was  already.  I  decided,  both  for 
his  sake  and  my  own,  to  walk  up  frankly  and  take  the  bull 
by  the  horns.  "They're  generally  strangers;  but  some- 
times people  come  whom  I  know."  I  looked  at  him 
steadily  as  I  continued.  "I'll  tell  you  something,  sir. 
Perhaps  I  ought  not  to,  and  it  may  be  betraying  a  secret ; 
but  you  might  as  well  know  it  from  me  as  hear  it  from 
some  one  else."  The  expression  of  the  face  he  turned  on 
me  was  so  much  that  of  Jove,  whose  look  could  strike  a 
man  dead,  that  I  had  all  I  could  do  to  go  on.  "Mrs. 
Brokenshire  comes  to  see  me." 
"To  see— you?" 
"Yes,  sir,  to  see  me."  . 

The  staccato  accent  grew  difficult  and  thick.     "What 
for?" 

' '  Because  she  can't  help  it.     She's  sorry  for  me. " 
There  was  a  new  attempt  to  ignore  me  and  my  troubles 
as  he  said: 

"Why  should  she  be  sorry  for  you?" 
"Because  she  sees  that  you're  hard  on  me — " 
"  I  liaven't  meant  to  be  hard  on  you,  only  just." 
"Well,  just  tken;  but  Mrs.  Brokenshire  doesn't  know 

229 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

anything  about  justice  when  she  can  be  merciful.  You 
must  know  that  yourself,  sir.  I  think  she's  the  most 
beautiful  woman  God  ever  made ;  and  she's  as  kind  as  she's 
beautiful.  I'll  tell  you  something  else,  sir.  It  will  be 
another  betrayal,  but  it  will  show  you  what  she  is.  One 
day  at  Newport — after  you'd  spoken  to  me — and  she  saw 
that  I  was  so  crushed  by  it  that  all  I  could  do  was  to  creep 
down  among  the  rocks  and  cry — she  watched  me,  and  fol- 
lowed me,  and  came  and  cried  with  me.  And  so  when  she 
heard  I  was  here — " 

"Who  told  her?" 

There  was  a  measure  of  accusation  in  the  tone  of  the 
question,  but  I  pretended  not  to  detect  it. 

"Mrs.  Rossi ter,  perhaps — she  knows — or  almost  any- 
body. I  never  asked  her." 

"Very  well!    What  then?" 

"  I  was  only  going  to  say  that  when  she  heard  I  was  here 
she  came  almost  at  once.  I  begged  her  not  to — ' ' 

' '  Why  ?    What  were  you  afraid  of  ? " 

"I  knew  you  wouldn't  like  it.  But  I  couldn't  stop  her. 
No  one  could  stop  her  when  it  comes  to  her  doing  an  act  of 
kindness.  She  obeys  her  own  nature  because  she  can't 
do  anything  else.  She's  like  a  little  bird  that  you  can 
keep  from  flying  by  holding  it  in  your  hand'  but  as  soon  as 
your  grasp  is  relaxed — it  flies." 

Something  of  this  was  true,  in  that  it  was  true  poten- 
tially. She  had  these  qualities,  even  if  they  were  nipped 
in  her  as  buds  are  nipped  in  a  backward  spring.  I  could 
only  calm  my  conscience  as  I  went  along  by  saying  to  my- 
self that  if  I  saved  her  she  would  have  to  bear  me  out 
through  being  true  to  the  picture  I  was  painting,  and  liv- 
ing up  to  her  real  self. 

Praise  of  the  woman  he  adored  would  have  been  as 

230 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

music  to  him  had  he  not  had  something  on  his  mind  that 
turned  music  into  poignancy.  What  it  was  I  could  sur- 
mise, and  so  be  prepared  for  it.  Not  till  he  had  been 
some  time  silent,  probably  getting  his  question  into  the 
right  words,  did  he  say: 

"And  are  you  always  alone  when  Mrs.  Brokenshire 
comes?" 

"Oh  no,  sir!"  I  made  the  tone  as  natural  as  I  could. 
"But  Mrs.  Brokenshire  doesn't  seem  to  mind.  Yester- 
day, for  instance — " 

"Was  she  here  yesterday?    I  thought  she  came  on — " 

I  broke  in  before  he  could  betray  himself  further. 

"Yes,  she  was  here  yesterday;  and  there  was — let  me 
see ! — there  was  an  old  gentleman  comparing  his  Japanese 
prints  with  Mr.  Grainger's,  and  a  middle-aged  lady  who 
comes  to  study  the  old  editions  of  Shakespeare.  But  Mrs. 
Brokenshire  didn't  object  to  them.  She  sat  with  me  and 
had  a  cup  of  tea." 

I  knew  I  had  come  to  dangerous  ground,  and  was  ready 
for  my  part  in  the  adventure.  Had  he  asked  the  ques- 
tion: "Was  there  anybody  else?"  I  was  resolved,  in  the 
spirit  of  my  maxim,  to  tell  the  truth  as  harmlessly  as  I 
knew  how.  But  I  didn't  think  he  would  ask  it.  I  reck- 
oned on  his  unwillingness  to  take  me  into  his  confidence 
or  to  humiliate  himself  more  than  he  could  help.  That 
he  guessed  at  something  behind  my  words  I  could  easily 
suspect;  but  I  was  so  sure  he  would  have  torn  out  his 
tongue  rather  than  force  his  pride  to  cross-examine  me 
too  closely,  that  I  was  able  to  run  my  risk. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  he  became  pensive,  and  through  the 

gloom  of  the  half -lighted  room  I  could  see  that  his  face 

was  contorted  twice,  still  with  no  effort  on  his  part  to  hide 

his  misfortune.     As  he  took  the  time  to  think  I  could  do 

16  231 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

the  same,  with  a  kind  of  intuition  in  following  the  course 
of  his  meditations.  I  was  not  surprised,  therefore,  when 
he  said,  with  renewed  thickness  of  utterance: 

"Has  Mrs.  Brokenshire  any — any  other  motive  in 
coming  here  than  just — just  to  see  you?" 

I  hung  my  head,  perhaps  with  a  touch  of  that  play- 
acting spirit  which  most  women  are  able  to  command, 
when  the  time  comes. 

"Yes,  sir." 

He  waited  again.  I  never  heard  such  overtones  of 
despair  as  were  in  the  three  words  which  at  last  he  tried 
to  toss  off  easily. 

"What  is  it?" 

I  still  hung  my  head. 

"  She  brings  me  money  for  poor  Hugh." 

He  started  back,  whether  from  anger  or  relief  I  couldn't 
tell,  and  his  face  twitched  for  the  fourth  time.  In  the 
end,  I  suppose,  he  decided  that  anger  was  the  card  he 
could  play  most  skilfully. 

"So  that  that's  what  enables  him  to  keep  up  his  rebel- 
lion against  me!" 

"No,  sir,"  I  said,  humbly,  "because  he  never  takes  it." 
I  went  on  with  that  portrait  of  Mrs.  Brokenshire  which  I 
vowed  she  would  have  to  justify.  "That  doesn't  make 
any  difference,  however,  to  her  wonderful  tenderness 
of  heart  in  wanting  him  to  have  it.  You  see,  sir,  when 
any  one's  so  much  like  an  angel  as  she  is  they  don't  stop 
to  consider  how  justly  other  people  are  suffering  or  how 
they've  brought  their  troubles  on  themselves.  Where 
there's  trouble  they  only  ask  to  help;  where  there's  suf- 
fering their  first  instinct  is  to  heal.  Mrs.  Brokenshire 
doesn't  want  to  sustain  your  son  against  you;  that  never 
enters  her  head:  she  only  wants  him  not — not" — my 

232 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

own  voice  shook  a  little — "not  to  have  to  go  without  his 
proper  meals.  He's  doing  that  now,  I  think — sometimes, 
at  least.  Oh,  sir,"  I  ventured  to  plead,  "you  can't  blame 
her,  not  when  she's  so — so  heavenly."  Stealing  a  glance 
at  him,  I  was  amazed  and  shocked,  and  not  a  little  com- 
forted, to  see  two  tears  steal  down  his  withered  cheeks. 
Knowing  then  that  he  would  not  for  some  minutes  be  able 
to  control  himself  sufficiently  to  speak,  I  hurried  on. 
"Hugh  doesn't  take  the  money,  because  he  knows  that 
this  is  something  he  must  go  through  with  on  his  own 
strength.  If  he  can't  do  that  he  must  give  in.  I  think 
I've  made  that  clear  to  him.  I'm  not  the  adventuress 
you  consider  me — indeed  I'm  not.  I've  told  him  that  if 
he's  ever  independent  I  will  marry  him;  but  I  shall  not 
marry  him  so  long  as  he  isn't  free  to  give  himself  away. 
He's  putting  up  a  big  fight,  and  he's  doing  it  so  bravely, 
that  if  you  only  knew  what  he's  going  through  you'd  be 
proud  of  him  as  your  son." 

Resting  my  case  there,  I  waited  for  some  response,  but 
I  waited  in  vain.  He  reflected,  and  sat  silent,  and  crossed 
and  uncrossed  his  knees.  At  last  he  picked  up  his  hat 
from  the  floor  and  rose.  I,  too,  rose,  waiting  beside  my 
chair,  while  he  flicked  the  dust  from  the  crown  of  his  hat 
and  seemed  to  study  its  glossy  surface  as  he  still  reflected. 

I  was  now  altogether  without  a  clue  to  what  was  pass- 
ing in  his  mind,  though  I  could  guess  at  the  age-long 
tragedy  of  December's  love  for  May.  Having  seen  Ibsen's 
"Master  Builder,"  at  Munich,  and  read  one  or  two  books 
on  the  theme  with  which  it  deals,  I  could,  in  a  measure, 
supplement  my  own  experience.  It  was,  however,  the  first 
time  I  had  seen  with  my  own  eyes  this  desperate  yearning 
of  age  for  youth,  or  this  something  that  is  almost  a  death- 
blow which  youth  can  inflict  on  age.  My  father  used  to 

233 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

say  that  fundamentally  there  is  no  such  period  as  age, 
that  only  the  outer  husk  grows  old,  while  the  inner  self, 
the  vital  ego,  is  young  eternally.  Here,  it  seemed  to  me, 
was  an  instance  of  the  fact.  This  man  was  essentially  as 
young  as  he  had  been  at  twenty-five;  he  had  the  same 
instincts  and  passions;  he  demanded  the  same  things. 
If  anything,  he  demanded  them  more  imperiously  be- 
cause of  the  long,  long  habit  of  desire.  Denial  which 
thirty  years  ago  he  could  have  taken  philosophically  was 
now  a  source  of  anguish.  As  I  looked  at  him  I  could 
see  anguish  on  his  lips,  in  his  eyes,  in  the  contraction  of 
his  forehead — the  anguish  of  a  love  ridiculous  to  all,  and 
to  the  object  of  it  frightful  and  unnatural,  for  the  reason 
that  at  sixty-two  the  skin  had  grown  baggy  and  the  heart 
was  supposed  to  be  dead. 

From  the  smoothing  of  the  crown  of  his  hat  he  glanced 
up  suddenly.  The  whip-lash  inflection  was  again  in  the 
timbre  of  the  voice. 

"  How  much  do  you  get  here?" 

I  was  taken  aback,  but  I  named  the  amount  of  my 
salary. 

"I  will  give  you  twice  as  much  as  that  for  the  next  five 
years  if — if  you  go  back  to  where  you  came  from." 

It  took  me  a  minute  to  seize  all  the  implications  con- 
tained in  this  little  speech.  I  saw  then  that  if  I  hoped  I 
was  making  an  impression,  or  getting  further  ahead  with 
him,  I  was  mistaken.  Neither  had  my  interpretation  of 
Mrs.  Brokenshire's  character  put  him  off  the  scent  con- 
cerning her.  I  was  so  far  indeed  from  influencing  him  in 
either  her  favor  or  my  own  that  he  believed  that  if  he 
could  get  rid  of  me  an  obstacle  would  be  removed. 

Tears  sprang  into  my  eyes,  though  they  didn't  fall. 

"So  you  blame  me,  sir,  for  everything." 

234 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

He  continued  to  watch  his  gloved  hand  as  it  made  the 
circle  of  the  crown  of  his  hat. 

"I'll  make  it  twice  what  you're  getting  here  for  ten 
years.  Ill  put  in  it  my  will."  It  was  no  use  being  angry 
or  mounting  my  high  horse.  The  struggle  with  tears 
kept  me  silent  as  he  glanced  up  from  the  rubbing  of  his 
hat  and  said  in  a  jerky,  kindly  tone:  "Well?  What  do 
you  say?" 

I  didn't  know  what  to  say;  and  what  I  did  say  was 
foolish.  I  should  have  known  enough  to  suppress  it 
before  I  began. 

"  Do  you  remember,  sir,  that  once  when  you  were  speak- 
ing to  me  severely,  you  said  you  were  my  friend?  Well, 
why  shouldn't  I  be  your  friend,  too?" 

The  look  he  bent  down  on  me  was  that  of  a  great 
personage  positively  dazed  by  an  inferior's  audacity. 

'I  could  be  your  friend,"  I  stumbled  on,  in  an  absurd 
effort  to  explain  myself.  "I  should  like  to  be.  There 
sore — there  are  things  I  could  do  for  you." 

He  put  on  his  tall  hat  with  the  air  of  a  Charlemagne  or 
a  Napoleon  crowning  himself.  This  increase  of  authority 
must  have  made  me  desperate.  It  is  only  thus  that  I 
can  account  for  my  gaffe — the  French  word  alone  expresses 
it — as  I  dashed  on,  wildly: 

"  I  like  you,  sir — I  can't  help  it.  I  don't  know  why, 
but  I  do.  I  like  you  in  spite  of — in  spite  of  everything. 
And,  oh,  I'm  so  sorry  for  you — " 

He  moved  away.  There  was  noble,  wounded  offense 
in  his  manner  of  passing  through  the  wrought-iron  grille, 
which  he  closed  with  a  little  click  behind  him.  He  stepped 
out  of  the  place  as  softly  as  he  had  stepped  in. 

For  long  minutes  I  stood,  holding  to  the  side  of  the 
William  and  Mary  chair,  regretting  that  the  interview 

235 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

should  have  ended  in  this  way.  I  didn't  cry;  I  had,  in 
fact,  no  longer  any  tendency  to  tears.  I  was  thoughtful — • 
wondering  what  it  was  that  dug  the  gulf  between  this  man 
and  his  family  and  me.  Ethel  Rossiter  had  never — I 
could  see  it  well  enough  now — accepted  me  as  an  equal, 
and  even  to  Hugh  I  was  only  another  type  of  Libby 
Jaynes.  I  was  as  intelligent  as  they,  as  well  born,  as  well 
mannered,  as  thoroughly  accustomed  to  the  world.  Why 
should  they  consider  me  an  inferior?  Was  it  because  I 
had  no  money?  Was  it  because  I  was  a  Canadian? 
Would  it  have  made  a  difference  if  I  had  been  an  English- 
woman like  Cissie  Boscobel,  or  rich  like  any  of  themselves? 
I  couldn't  tell.  All  I  knew  was  that  my  heart  was  hot 
within  me,  and  since  Howard  Brokenshire  wouldn't  have 
me  as  a  friend  I  wanted  to  act  as  his  enemy.  I  could  see 
how  to  do  it.  Indeed,  without  doing  anything  at  all  I 
could  encourage,  and  perhaps  bring  about,  a  situation  that 
would  send  the  name  of  the  family  ringing  through  the 
press  of  two  continents  and  break  his  heart.  I  had  only 
to  sit  still — or  at  most  to  put  in  a  word  here  and  there.  I 
am  not  a  saint;  I  had  my  hour  of  temptation. 

It  was  a  stormy  hour,  though  I  never  moved  from  the 
spot  where  I  stood.  The  storm  was  within.  That 
which,  as  the  minutes  went  by,  became  rage  in  me  saw 
with  satisfaction  Howard  Brokenshire  brought  to  a  deso- 
late old  age,  and  Mildred  and  Ethel  and  Jack  and  Pau- 
line, in  spite  of  their  bravado  and  their  high  heads,  all 
seared  by  the  flame  of  notorious  disgrace.  I  went  so  far 
as  to  gloat  over  poor  Hugh's  discomfiture,  taking  ven- 
geance on  his  habit  of  rating  me  with  the  socially  incom- 
petent. As  for  Mrs.  Brokenshire,  she  would  be  over  and 
done  with,  a  poor  little  gilded  outcast,  whose  fall  would  be 
such  that  even  as  Mrs.  Stacy  Grainger  she  would  never 

236 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

rise  again.  Like  another  Samson,  I  could  pull  down  this 
house  of  pride,  though,  happier  than  Samson,  I  should  not 
be  overwhelmed  in  the  ruin  of  it.  From  that  I  should  be 
safe — with  Larry  Strangways. 

Nearly  half  an  hour  went  by  while  I  stood  thus  indulg- 
ing in  fierce  day-dreams.  I  was  racked  and  suffering. 
I  suffered,  indeed,  from  the  misfortunes  I  saw  descending 
on  people  whom  at  bottom  of  my  heart  I  cared  for.  It 
was  not  till  I  began  to  move,  till  I  had  put  on  my  jacket 
and  was  turning  out  the  lights,  that  my  maxim  came  back 
to  me.  I  knew  then  that  whatever  happened  I  should 
stand  by  that,  and  having  come  to  this  understanding 
with  myself,  I  was  quieted. 


CHAPTER  XVI 

HAVING  made  up  my  mind  to  adhere,  however  im- 
perfectly, to  the  princiole  that  had  guided  me 
hitherto,  I  was  obliged  to  examine  my  conscience  as  to 
what  I  had  said  to  Mr.  Brokenshire.  This  I  did  in  the 
evening,  coming  to  the  conclusion  that  I  had  told  him 
nothing  but  the  truth,  even  if  it  was  not  all  the  truth. 
Though  I  hated  duplicity,  I  couldn't  see  that  I  had  a  right 
to  tell  him  all  the  truth,  or  that  to  do  so  would  be  wise. 
If  he  could  be  kept,  for  everybody's  sake,  from  knowing 
more  than  he  knew  already,  however  much  or  little  that 
was,  it  seemed  to  me  that  diplomatic  action  on  my  part 
would  be  justified. 

In  the  line  of  diplomatic  action  I  had  before  all  things 
to  inform  Mrs.  Brokenshire  of  the  visit  I  had  received. 
This  was  not  so  easy  as  it  may  seem.  I  could  not  trust 
to  a  letter,  through  fear  of  its  falling  into  other  hands 
than  hers.  Neither  could  I  wait  for  her  coming  on  the 
following  Tuesday,  since  that  was  what  I  wanted  to  pre- 
vent. There  was  no  intermediary  whom  I  could  intrust 
with  a  message,  unless  it  was  Larry  Strangways,  who  knew 
something  of  the  facts;  but  even  with  him  the  secret  was 
too  much  to  share. 

In  the  end  I  had  recourse  to  the  telephone,  asking  to 
be  allowed  to  speak  to  Mrs.  Brokenshire.  I  was  told  that 
she  never  answered  the  telephone  herself,  and  was  re- 

238 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

quested  to  transmit  my  message.  Not  to  arouse  sus- 
picion, I  didn't  ask  that  she  should  break  her  rule,  but 
begged  that  during  the  day  she  might  find  a  minute  in 
which  to  see  Miss  Adare,  who  was  in  a  difficulty  that  in- 
volved her  work.  That  this  way  of  putting  it  was 
understood  I  gathered  from  the  reply  that  came  back  to 
me.  It  was  to  the  effect  that  as  Mr.  Brokenshire  would 
be  lunching  with  some  men  in  the  lower  part  of  New  York 
Mrs.  Brokenshire  would  be  alone  and  able  to  receive  Miss 
Adare  at  two.  Fortunately,  it  was  a  Saturday,  so  that 
my  afternoon  was  free. 

Almost  everybody  familiar  with  New  York  knows  the 
residence  of  J.  Howard  Brokenshire  not  far  above  the 
Museum.  Built  of  brick  with  stone  facings,  it  is  meant 
to  be  in  the  style  of  Louis  Treize.  It  would  be  quite  in 
the  style  of  Louis  Treize  were  the  stonework  not  too  heavy 
and  elaborate,  and  the  fagade  too  high  for  its  length. 
Inside,  with  an  incongruity  many  rich  people  do  not  mind, 
it  is  sumptuously  Roman  and  Florentine — the  Broken- 
shire villa  at  Newport  on  a  larger  and  more  lavish  scale. 
Having  gone  over  the  house  with  Ethel  Rossiter  during 
the  winter  I  spent  with  her,  I  had  carried  away  the  im- 
pression of  huge  unoccupied  rooms,  of  heavily  carved  or 
gilded  furniture,  of  rich  brocades,  of  dim  old  masters  in 
elaborate  gold  frames,  of  vitrines  and  vases  and  mirrors 
and  consoles,  all  supplied  by  some  princely  dealer  in  obfets 
d'art  who  had  received  carte  blanche  in  the  way  of  decora- 
tion. The  Brokenshire  family,  with  the  possible  exception 
of  Mildred,  cared  little  for  the  things  with  which 
they  lived.  Ethel  Rossiter,  in  showing  me  over  the 
house,  hardly  knew  a  Perugino  from  a  Fragonard,  and 
still  less  could  she  distinguish  between  the  glorious  fading 
softness  of  a  Flemish  fifteenth-century  tapestry  and  a 

239 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

smug  and  staring  bit  of  Gobelins.  Hugh  went  in  and  out 
as  indifferently  as  in  a  hotel,  while  Jack  Brokenshire's 
taste  in  art  hardly  reached  beyond  racing  prints.  Mildred 
liked  pretty  garlanded  things  &  la  Marie  Antoinette,  which 
the  parental  habit  of  deciding  everything  would  never 
let  her  have.  J.  Howard  alone  made  an  effort  at  knowing 
the  value,  artistic  and  otherwise,  of  his  possessions,  and 
would  sometimes,  when  strangers  were  present,  point  to 
this  or  that  object  with  the  authority  of  a  connoisseur, 
which  he  was  not. 

It  was  a  house  for  life  in  perpetual  state,  with  no  state 
to  maintain.  Stafford  House,  Holland  House,  Bridge- 
water  House,  to  name  but  a  few  of  the  historic  mansions 
in  London,  were  made  spacious  and  splendid  to  meet  a  defi- 
nite necessity.  They  belonged  to  days  when  the  feudal 
tradition  still  obtained  and  there  were  no  comfortable 
hotels.  Great  lords  came  to  them  with  great  families 
and  great  suites  of  retainers.  Accommodation  being 
the  first  of  all  needs,  there  was  a  time  when  every  corner 
of  these  stately  residences  was  lived  in.  But  now  that 
in  England  the  great  lord  tends  more  and  more  to  be  only 
a  simple  democratic  individual,  and  the  wants  of  his  rela- 
tives are  easily  met  on  a  public  or  co-operative  principle, 
the  noble  Palladian  or  Georgian  dwelling  either  becomes 
a  museum  or  a  club,  or  remains  a  white  elephant  on  the 
hands  of  some  one  who  would  gladly  be  rid  of  it.  Princes 
and  princesses  of  the  blood  royal  rent  numbered  houses 
in  squares  and  streets,  next  door  to  the  Smiths  and  the 
Joneses,  in  preference  to  the  draughty  grandeurs  of  St. 
James's  and  Buckingham  Palace,  while  a  villa  in  the 
suburbs,  with  a  few  trees  and  a  garden,  is  often  the  shelter 
sought  by  the  nobility. 

But  in  proportion  as  civilization  in  England,  to  say 

240 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

nothing  of  the  rest  of  Europe,  puts  off  the  burdensome  to 
enjoy  simplicity,  America,  it  strikes  me,  chases  the  tail 
of  an  antiquated,  disappearing  stateliness.  Rich  men, 
just  because  they  have  the  money,  take  upon  their  shoul- 
ders huge  domestic  responsibilities  in  which  there  is  no 
object,  and  which  it  is  probable  the  next  generation  will 
refuse  to  carry.  In  New  York,  in  Washington,  in  New- 
port, in  Chicago,  they  raise  palaces  and  chateaux  where 
they  often  find  themselves  lonely,  and  which  they  can 
rarely  fill  more  than  two  or  three  times  a  year.  In  the 
case  of  the  Howard  Brokenshires  it  had  ceased  to  be  as 
often  as  that.  After  Ethel  was  married  Mr.  Brokenshire 
seldom  entertained,  his  second  wife  having  no  heart  for 
that  kind  of  display.  Now  and  then,  in  the  course  of  a 
winter,  a  great  dinner  was  given  in  the  great  dining-room, 
or  the  music-room  was  filled  for  a  concert;  but  this  was 
done  for  the  sake  of  "killing  off"  those  to  whom  some  at- 
tention had  to  be  shown,  and  not  because  either  host  or 
hostess  cared  for  it.  Otherwise  the  down-stairs  rooms 
were  silent  and  empty,  and  whatever  was  life  in  the  house 
went  on  in  a  corner  of  the  mansard. 

Thither  the  footman  took  me  in  a  lift.  Here  were  the 
rooms — a  sort  of  flat — which  the  occupants  could  domi- 
nate with  their  personalities.  They  reminded  me  of  those 
tiny  chambers  at  Versailles  to  which  what  was  human  in 
poor  Marie  Antoinette  fled  for  refuge  from  her  uncomf ort< 
able  gorgeousness  as  queen. 

Not  that  these  rooms  were  tiny.  On  the  contrary,  the 
library  or  living-room  into  which  I  was  ushered  was  as 
large  as  would  be  found  in  the  average  big  house,  and, 
notwithstanding  its  tapestries  and  massive  furniture,  was 
bright  with  sunshine  and  flowers.  Books  lay  about, 
and  papers  and  magazines,  and  after  the  tomb -like 

241 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

deadness  erf  the  lower  floors  one  got  at  least  the  im- 
pression of  life. 

From  the  far  end  of  the  room  Mrs.  Brokenshire  came 
forward,  threading  her  way  between  arm-chairs  and 
taborets,  and  looking  more  exquisite,  and  also  more  lost, 
than  ever.  She  wore  what  might  be  called  a  glorified 
negligee,  lilac  and  lavender  shading  into  violet,  the  train 
adding  to  her  height.  Fear  had  to  some  degree  blotted 
out  her  color  and  put  trouble  into  the  sweetness  of  her 
eyes. 

"Something  has  happened,"  she  said  at  once,  as  she 
took  my  hand. 

I  spoke  as  directly  as  she  did,  though  a  little  pantingly. 

"Yes;  Mr.  Brokenshire  came  to  the  library  yesterday." 

"Ah-h!"  The  exclamation  was  no  more  than  a  long, 
frightened  breath.  "Then  that  explains  things.  I  saw 
when  he  came  home  to  dinner  that  he  was  unhappy." 

"Did  he  say  anything?" 

"No;  nothing.  He  was  just — unhappy.  Sit  down 
and  tell  me." 

Staring  wide-eyed  at  each  other,  we  seated  ourselves  on 
the  edge  of  two  huge  arm-chairs.  Having  half  expected 
my  companion  to  fling  the  gauntlet  in  her  husband's 
face,  I  was  relieved  to  find  in  her  chiefly  the  dread  of 
detection. 

As  exactly  as  I  could  I  gave  her  an  account  of  what 
had  passed  between  Mr.  Brokenshire  and  myself,  omitting 
only  those  absurd  suggestions  of  my  own  that  had  sent 
him  away  in  dudgeon.  She  listened  with  no  more  inter- 
ruption than  a  question  or  two,  after  which  she  said, 
simply: 

"Then,  I  suppose,  I  can't  go  any  more." 

"On  the  contrary,"  I  corrected,  "you  must  come  just 

242 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

the  same  as  ever,  only  not  on  the  same  days,  or  at  the  same 
hours — or — or  when  there's  any  one  else  there  besides  the 
visitors  and  me.  If  you  stopped  coming  all  of  a  sudden 
Mr.  Brokenshire  would  think — " 

"But  he  thinks  that  already." 

"Of  course,  but  he  doesn't  know — not  after  what  I  said 
to  him."  I  seized  the  opportunity  to  beg  her  to  play  up. 
"You  are  all  the  things  I  told  him  you  were,  dear  Mrs. 
Brokenshire,  don't  you  see  you  are?" 

But  my  appeal  passed  unheeded. 

"What  made  him  suspect?  I  thought  that  would  be 
the  last  thing." 

"I  don't  know.  It  might  have  been  a  lot  of  things. 
Once  or  twice  I've  rather  fancied  that  some  of  the  people 
who  came  there — " 

Her  features  contracted  in  a  spasm  of  horror. 

"You  don't  mean  detect — "  She  found  the  word 
difficult  to  pronounce.  "You  don't  mean  de-detectives 
watching — me?" 

" I  don't  say  as  much  as  that;  but  I've  never  liked  Mr. 
Brokenshire's  man,  Spellman." 

"  No,  nor  I.  He's  out  now.  I  made  sure  of  that  before 
you  came." 

"  So  he  might  have  sent  some  one ;  or —  But  it's  no  use 
speculating,  is  it?  when  there  are  so  many  ways.  What 
we've  specially  got  to  know  is  how  to  act,  and  I  think  I've 
told  you  the  best  method.  If  you  don't  keep  coming — 
judiciously — you'll  show  you're  conscious  of  having  done 
wrong." 

She  sighed  plaintively. 

"  I  don't  want  to  do  wrong  unless  I  can't  help  it.  If  I 
can't—" 

"Oh,  but  you  can."  I  tried  once  more  to  get  in  my 

243 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

point.     "You  wouldn't  be  all  I  told  Mr.  Brokenshire 
you  were  if  your  first  instinct  wasn't  to  do  right." 

"Oh,  right!"  She  sighed  again,  but  impatiently. 
"You're  always  talking  about  that." 

"One  has  to,  don't  you  think,  when  it's  so  important — 
and  so  easy  to  do  wrong?" 

She  grew  mildly  argumentative. 

"I  don't  see  anything  so  terrible  about  wrong,  when 
other  people  do  it  and  are  none  the  worse." 

"  May  not  that  be  because  you've  never  tried  it  on  your 
own  account?  It  depends  a  little  on  the  grain  of  which 
one's  made.  The  finer  the  grain,  the  more  harm  wrong 
can  do  to  it — just  as  a  fragile  bit  of  Venetian  glass  is  more 
easily  broken  than  an  earthenware  jug,  and  an  infinitely 
greater  loss." 

But  the  simile  was  wasted.  From  long  contemplation 
of  her  hands  she  looked  up  to  say  in  a  curiously  coaxing 
tone: 

"You  live  at  the  Hotel  Mary  Chilton,  don't  you?" 

I  caught  her  suggestion  in  a  flash,  and  decided  that  I 
could  let  it  go  no  further. 

"Yes,  but  you  couldn't  come  there — unless  it  was  only 
to  see  me." 

"But  what  shall  I  do?" 

It  was  a  kind  of  cry.  She  twisted  her  ringed  fingers, 
while  her  eyes  implored  me  to  help  her. 

"Do  nothing,"  I  said,  gently,  and  yet  with  some  sever- 
ity. "If  you  do  anything  do  just  as  I've  said.  That's 
all  we've  got  to  know  for  the  present." 

"  But  I  must  see  him.  Now  that  I've  got  used  to  doing 
it—" 

"If  you  must  see  him,  dear  Mrs.  Brokenshire,  you 
will."  " 

244 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

' '  Shall  I ?    Will  you  promise  me ?" 

"  I  don't  have  to  promise  you.  It's  the  way  life  works. 
If  we  only  trust  to  events — and  to  whatever  it  is  that 
guides  events — and — and  do  right — I  must  repeat  it — 
then  the  thing  that  ought  to  be  will  shape  its  course — " 

"Ah,  but  if  it  doesn't?" 

"In  that  case  we  can  know  that  it  oughtn't  to  be." 

"I  don't  care  whether  it  ought  to  be  or  not,  so  long  as  I 
can  go  on  seeing  him — somewhere." 

I  had  enough  sympathy  with  her  to  say: 

"Yes,  but  don't  plan  for  it.  Let  it  take  care  of  itself 
and  happen  in  some  natural  way.  Isn't  it  by  mapping 
out  things  for  ourselves  that  we  often  thwart  the  good 
that  would  otherwise  have  come  to  us?  I  remember 
reading  somewhere  of  a  lady  who  wrote  of  herself  that  she 
had  been  healed  of  planning,  and  spoke  of  it  as  a  real  cure. 
That  struck  me  as  so  sensible.  Life — not  to  use  a  greater 
word — knows  much  better  what's  good  for  us  than  we  do 
ourselves." 

She  allowed  this  theme  to  lapse,  while  she  sat  pensive. 

"What  shall  I  say,"  she  asked  at  last,  "if  he  brings  the 
subject  up?" 

I  saw  another  opportunity. 

"What  can  you  say  other  than  what  I've  said  already? 
You  came  to  me  because  you  were  sorry  for  me,  and  you 
wanted  to  help  Hugh.  He  might  regret  that  you  should  do 
both,  but  he  couldn't  blame  you  for  either.  They're  only 
kindnesses — and  we're  all  at  liberty  to  be  kind.  Oh,  don't 
you  see?  That's  your — how  shall  I  put  it? — that's  your 
line  if  Mr.  Brokenshire  ever  speaks  to  you." 

"And  suppose  he  tells  me  not  to  go  to  see  you  any 
more?" 

"Then  you  must  stop.  That  will  be  the  time.  But 
245 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

not  now  when  the  mere  stopping  would  be  a  kind  of  con- 
fession— " 

And  so,  after  many  repetitions  and  some  tears  on  both 
our  parts,  the  lesson  was  urged  home.  She  was  less  docile, 
however,  when  in  the  spirit  of  our  new  compact  she  came 
on  the  following  Monday  morning. 

"I  must  see  him,"  was  the  burden  of  what  she  had  to 
say.  She  spoke  as  if  I  was  forbidding  her  and  ought  to 
lift  my  veto.  I  might  even  have  inferred  that  in  my  posi- 
tion in  Mr.  Grainger's  employ  it  was  for  me  to  arrange 
their  meetings. 

"You  will  see  him,  dear  Mrs.  Brokenshire — if  it's 
right,"  was  the  only  answer  I  could  find. 

"You  don't  seem  to  remember  that  I  was  to  have 
married  him." 

"  I  do,  but  we  both  have  to  remember  that  you  didn't." 

"Neither  did  I  marry  Mr.  Brokenshire.  I  was  handed 
over  to  him.  When  Lady  Mary  Hamilton  was  handed 
over  in  that  way  to  the  Prince  of  Monaco  the  Pope  an- 
nulled the  marriage.  We  knew  her  afterward  in  Buda- 
pest, married  to  some  one  else.  If  there's  such  a  thing  as 
right,  as  you're  so  fond  of  saying,  I  ought  to  be  considered 
free." 

I  was  holding  both  her  hands  as  I  said: 

"  Don't  try  to  make  yourself  free.     Let  life  do  it." 

"Life!"  she  cried,  with  a  passionate  vehemence  I 
scarcely  knew  to  be  in  her.  ' '  It's  life  that — " 

"Treat  life  as  a  friend  and  not  as  an  enemy.  Trust  it; 
wait  for  it.  Don't  hurry  it,  or  force  it,  or  be  impatient 
with  it.  I  can't  believe  that  essentially  it's  hard  or  cruel 
or  a  curse.  If  it  comes  from  God,  it  must  be  good  and 
beautiful.  In  proportion  as  we  cling  to  the  good  and 
beautiful  we  must  surely  get  the  thing  we  ought  to  have." 

24.6 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

Though  I  cannot  say  that  she  accepted  this  doctrine, 
it  helped  her  over  a  day  or  two,  leaving  me  free  for  the 
time  being  to  give  my  attention  to  my  own  affairs.  Hav- 
ing no  natural  stamina,  the  poor,  lovely  little  creature  lived 
on  such  mental  and  spiritual  pick-me-ups  as  I  was  able  to 
administer.  Whenever  she  was  specially  in  despair, 
which  was  every  forty-eight  or  sixty  hours,  she  came  back 
to  me,  and  I  did  what  I  could  to  brace  her  for  the  next 
short  step  of  her  way.  I  find  it  hard  to  explain  the  in- 
tensity of  her  appeal  to  me.  I  suppose  I  must  have  sub- 
mitted to  that  spell  of  the  perfect  face  which  had  bewitched 
Stacy  Grainger  and  Howard  Brokenshire.  I  submitted 
also  to  her  child-like  helplessness.  God  knows  I  am  not 
a  heroine.  Any  little  fright  or  difficulty  upsets  me.  As 
compared  with  her,  however,  I  was  a  giant  refreshed  with 
wine.  When  her  lip  quivered,  or  when  the  sudden  mist 
drifted  across  her  eyes,  obscuring  their  forget-me-not  blue 
with  violet,  my  yearning  was  exactly  that  which  makes 
any  woman  long  to  take  any  suffering  baby  in  her  arms. 
For  this  reason  she  didn't  tax  my  patience,  nor  had  I  that 
impulse  to  scold  or  shake  her  to  which  another  woman  of 
such  obvious  limitations  would  have  driven  me.  Touched 
as  I  was  by  the  aching  heart,  I  was  captivated  by  the 
perfect  face;  and  I  couldn't  help  it. 

Thus  through  the  rest  of  February  and  into  March  my 
chief  occupation  was  in  keeping  Howard  Brokenshire's 
wife  as  true  to  him  as  the  conditions  rendered  possible. 
In  the  intervals  I  comforted  Hugh,  and  beat  off  Larry 
Strangways,  and  sat  rigidly  still  while  Stacy  Grainger 
prowled  round  me  with  fierce,  suspicious,  melancholy 
eyes,  like  those  of  a  cowed  tiger.  Afraid  of  him  as  I  was, 
it  filled  me  with  grim  inward  amusement  to  discover  that 
he  was  equally  afraid  of  me.  He  came  into  the  library 

17  247 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

from  time  to  time,  when  he  happened  to  be  at  his  house, 
and  like  Mrs.  Brokenshire  gave  me  the  impression  that 
the  frustration  of  their  love  was  my  fault.  As  I  sat  primly 
and  severely  at  my  desk,  and  he  stalked  round  and  round 
the  room,  stabbing  the  old  gentleman  who  classified  prints 
and  the  lady  who  collated  the  early  editions  of  Shakespeare 
with  contemptuous  glances,  I  knew  that  in  his  sight  I 
represented — poor  me! — that  virtuous  respectability  the 
sinner  always  holds  in  scorn.  He  could  not  be  ignorant 
of  the  fact  that  if  it  hadn't  been  for  me  Mrs.  Brokenshire 
would  have  been  meeting  him  elsewhere,  and  so  he  held 
me  as  an  enemy.  Had  he  not  known  that  I  was  something 
besides  an  enemy  he  would  doubtless  have  sent  me  about 
my  business. 

In  one  of  the  intervals  of  this  portion  of  the  drama  I 
received  a  visit  that  took  me  by  surprise.  Early  in  the 
afternoon  of  a  day  in  March,  Mrs.  Billing  trotted  into  the 
library,  followed  by  Lady  Cecilia  Boscobel.  It  was  the 
sort  of  occasion  on  which  I  should  have  been  nervous 
enough  in  any  case,  but  it  became  terrifying  when  Mrs. 
Billing  marched  up  to  my  desk  and  pointed  at  me  with 
her  lorgnette,  saying  over  her  shoulder,  "There  she  is," 
as  though  I  was  a  portrait. 

I  struggled  to  my  feet  with  what  was  meant  to  be  a 
smile. 

"Lady  Cecilia  Boscobel,"  I  stammered,  "has  seen  me 
already." 

"Well,  she  can  look  at  you  again,  can't  she?" 

The  English  girl  came  to  my  rescue  by  smiling  back, 
and  murmuring  a  faint  "How  do  you  do?"  She  eased  the 
situation  further  by  saying,  with  a  crisp,  rapid  articula- 
tion, in  which  every  syllable  was  charmingly  distinct: 
"  Mrs.  Billing  thought  that  as  we  were  out  sight-seeing  we 

248 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

might  as  well  look  at  this.  It's  shown  every  day,  isn't 
it?" 

She  went  on  to  observe  that  when  places  were  shown 
only  on  certain  days  it  was  so  tiresome.  One  of  her 
father's  places,  Dillingham  Hall,  in  Nottinghamshire,  an 
old  Tudor  house,  perfectly  awful  to  live  in,  was  open  to  the 
public  only  on  the  second  and  fourth  Wednesdays,  and 
even  the  family  couldn't  remember  when  those  days  came 
round.  It  was  so  awkward  to  be  doing  your  hair,  or  worse, 
and  have  tourists  stumbling  in  on  you. 

I  counted  it  to  the  credit  of  her  tact  and  kindliness  that 
she  chatted  in  this  way  long  enough  for  me  to  get  my 
breath,  while  Mrs.  Billing  turned  her  lorgnette  on  the 
room  with  which  she  must  have  once  been  familiar.  If 
there  was  to  be  anything  like  rivalry  between  Lady  Cissie 
and  me  I  gathered  that  she  wouldn't  stoop  to  petty 
feminine  advantages.  Dressed  in  dark  green,  with  a 
small  hat  of  the  same  color  worn  dashingly,  she  had  that 
air  of  being  the  absolutely  finished  thing  which  the  tones 
of  her  voice  announced  to  you.  My  heart  grew  faint  at 
the  thought  that  Hugh  would  have  to  choose  between  this 
girl,  so  certain  of  herself,  and  me. 

As  we  were  all  standing,  I  invited  my  callers  to  sit  down. 
To  this  Lady  Cecilia  acceded,  though  old  Mrs.  Rilling 
strolled  off  to  renew  her  acquaintance  with  the  room.  I 
may  say  here  that  I  call  her  old  because  to  be  old  was  a 
kind  of  pose  with  her.  She  looked  old  and  "dressed  old" 
so  as  to  enjoy  the  dictatorial  privileges  that  go  with  being 
old,  when  as  a  matter  of  fact  she  was  only  sixty,  which 
nowadays  is  young. 

"You're  English,  aren't  you?"  Lady  Cecilia  began,  as 
soon  as  we  were  alone.  ' '  I  can  tell  by  the  way  you  speak. ' ' 

I  said  I  was  a  Canadian,  that  I  was  in  New  York  more 
249 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

or  less  by  accident,  and  might  go  back  to  my  own  country 
again. 

"How  interesting!  It  belongs  to  us,  Canadia,  doesn't 
it?" 

With  a  slightly  ironic  emphasis  on  the  proper  noun  I 
replied  that  Canadia  naturally  belonged  to  the  Canadians, 
but  that  the  King  of  Great  Britain  and  Ireland  was  our 
king,  and  that  we  were  very  loyal  to  all  that  we 
represented. 

' '  Fancy !    And  isn't  it  near  here  ? ' ' 

All  of  Canada,  I  stated,  was  north  of  some  of  the  United 
States,  and  some  of  it  was  south  of  others  of  the  United 
States,  but  none  of  the  more  settled  parts  was  difficult  of 
access  from  New  York. 

"How  very  odd!"  was  her  comment  on  these  geograph- 
ical indications.  "I  think  I  remember  that  a  cousin  of 
ours  was  governor  out  there — or  something — though  per- 
haps it  was  in  India." 

I  named  the  series  of  British  noblemen  who  had  ruled 
over  us  since  the  confederation  of  the  provinces  in  1867, 
but  as  Lady  Cecilia's  kinsman  was  not  among  them  we 
concluded  that  he  must  have  been  Viceroy  of  India  or 
Governor-General  of  Australia. 

The  theme  served  to  introduce  us  to  each  other,  and 
lasted  while  Mrs.  Billing's  tour  of  inspection  kept  her 
within  earshot. 

I  am  bound  to  admit  that  I  admired  Lady  Cecilia  with 
an  envy  that  might  be  qualified  as  green.  She  was  not 
clever  and  she  was  not  well  educated,  but  her  high  breed- 
ing was  so  spontaneous.  She  so  obviously  belonged  to 
spheres  where  no  other  rule  obtained.  Her  manner  was 
the  union  of  polish  and  simplicity;  each  word  she  pro- 
nounced was  a  pleasure  to  the  ear.  In  my  own  case  life 

250 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

had  been  a  struggle  with  that  American-Canadian  crudity 
which  stamps  our  New  World  carriage  and  speech  with 
commonness;  but  you  could  no  more  imagine  this  girl 
lapsing  from  the  even  tenor  of  the  exquisite  than  you 
could  fancy  the  hermit  thrush  failing  in  its  song. 

When  Mrs.  Billing  was  quite  at  the  other  end  of  the 
room  my  companion's  manner  underwent  a  change. 
During  a  second  or  two  of  silence  her  eyes  fell,  while  the 
shifting  of  color  over  the  milk-whiteness  of  her  skin  was 
like  the  play  of  Canadian  northern  lights.  I  was  pre- 
pared for  the  fact  that  beneath  her  poise  she  might  be  shy, 
and  that,  being  shy,  she  would  be  abrupt. 

"You're  engaged  to  Hugh  Brokenshire,  aren't  you?" 

The  words  were  whipped  out  fast  and  jerkily,  partly  to 
profit  by  the  minute  during  which  Mrs.  Billing  was  at  a 
distance,  and  partly  because  it  was  a  matter  of  now-or- 
never  with  their  utterance. 

I  made  the  necessary  explanations,  for  what  seemed  to 
me  must  be  the  hundredth  time.  I  was  not  precisely 
engaged  to  him,  but  I  had  said  I  would  many  him  if 
either  of  two  conditions  could  be  carried  out.  I  went  on 
to  state  what  those  conditions  were,  finishing  with  the  in- 
formation that  of  the  two  I  had  practically  abandoned  one. 

She  nodded  her  comprehension. 

"You  see  that — that  they  won't  come  round." 

"No,"  I  replied,  with  some  incisiveness;  "they  will 
come  round — especially  Mr.  Brokenshire.  It's  the  other 
condition  I  no  longer  expect  to  see  fulfilled." 

If  the  hermit  thrush  could  fail  in  its  song  it  did  it  then. 
Lady  Cecilia  stared  at  me  with  a  blankness  that  became 
awe. 

"That's  the  most  extraordinary  thing  I  ever  heard. 
Ethel  Rossiter  must  be  wrong." 

251 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

I  had  a  sudden  suspicion. 

"Wrong  about  what?" 

The  question  put  Lady  Cecilia  on  her  guard. 

"Oh,  nothing  I  need  explain."  But  her  face  lighted 
with  quick  enthusiasm.  "I  call  it  magnificent." 

' '  Call  what '  magnificent '  ?" 

"Why,  that  you  should  have  that  conviction.  When 
one  sees  any  one  so  sporting — " 

I  began  to  get  her  idea. 

"Oh,  I'm  not  sporting.  I'm  a  perfect  coward.  But  a 
sheep  will  make  a  stand  when  it's  put  to  it." 

With  her  hands  in  her  sable  muff,  her  shapely  figure  was 
inclined  slightly  toward  me. 

"I'm  not  sure  that  a  sheep  that  makes  a  stand  isn't 
braver  than  a  lion.  The  man  my  sister  Janet  is  engaged 
to — he's  in  the  Inverness  Rangers — often  says  that  no 
one  could  be  funkier  than  he  on  going  into  action;  but 
that,"  she  continued,  her  face  aglow,  "didn't  prevent  his 
being  ever  so  many  times  mentioned  in  despatches  and 
getting  his  D.  S.  O." 

"  Please  don't  put  me  into  that  class — " 

"No;  I  won't.  After  all,  a  soldier  couldn't  really  funk 
things,  because  he's  got  everything  to  back  him  up.  But 
you  haven't.  And  when  I  think  of  you  sitting  here  all  by 
yourself,  and  expecting  that  great  big  rich  Mr.  Broken- 
shire  and  Ethel,  and  all  of  them,  to  come  to  your  terms — " 

To  get  away  from  a  view  of  my  situation  that  both  con- 
soled and  embarrassed  me,  I  said: 

"Tha,nk  you,  Lady  Cecilia,  very,  very  much;  but  it 
isn't  what  you  meant  to  say  when  you  began,  is  it?" 

With  some  confusion  she  admitted  that  it  wasn't. 

"Only,"  she  went  on,  "that  isn't  worth  while  now." 

A  hint  in  her  tone  impelled  me  to  insist. 

252 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

"It  may  be.  You  don't  know.  Please  tell  me  what  it 
was." 

"But  what's  the  use?  It  was  only  something  Ethel 
Rossiter  said — and  she  was  wrong." 

"What  makes  you  so  sure  she  was  wrong?" 

"Because  I  am.  I  can  see."  She  added,  reluctantly, 
"Ethel  thought  there  was  some  one — some  one  besides 
Hugh—" 

"And  what  if  there  was?" 

Though  startled  by  the  challenge,  she  stood  her  ground. 

"I  don't  believe  in  people  making  each  other  any  more 
unhappy  than  they  can  help,  do  you?"  She  had  a  habit 
of  screwing  up  her  small  gray-green  eyes  into  two  glim- 
mering little  slits  of  light,  with  an  effect  of  shyness  show- 
ing through  amusement  and  diablerie.  "We're  both  girls, 
aren't  we?  I'm  twenty,  and  you  can't  be  much  older. 
And  so  I  thought — that  is,  I  thought  at  first — that  if  you 
had  any  one  else  in  mind,  there'd  be  no  use  in  our  making 
each  other  miserable — but  I  see  you  haven't;  and  so — " 

"And  so,"  I  laughed,  nervously,  "the  race  must  be  to 
the  swift  and  the  battle  to  the  strong.  Is  that  it?" 

"N-no;  not  exactly.  What  I  was  going  to  say  is  that 
since — since  there's  nobody  but  Hugh — you  won't  be 
offended  with  me,  will  you? — I  won't  step  in — " 

It  was  my  turn  to  be  enthusiastic. 

"But  that's  what  I  call  sporting!" 

"Oh  no,  it  isn't.  I  haven't  seen  Hugh  for  two  or  three 
years,  and  whatever  little  thing  there  was — " 

I  strained  forward  across  my  desk.  I  know  my  eyes 
must  have  been  enormous. 

"But  was  there — was  there  ever — anything?" 

"Oh  no;  not  at  all.  He — he  never  noticed  me.  I  was 
only  in  the  school-room,  and  he  was  a  grown-up  young 

253 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

man.  If  his  father  and  mine  hadn't  been  great  friends — 
and  got  plans  into  their  heads — Laura  and  Janet  used  to 
poke  fun  at  me  about  it.  And  then  we  rode  together  and 
played  tennis  and  golf,  and  so — but  it  was  all — just 
nothing.  You  know  how  silly  a  girl  of  seventeen  can  be. 
It  was  nonsense.  I  only  want  you  to  know,  in  case  he  ever 
says  anything  about  it — but  then  he  never  will — men  see 
so  little — I  only  want  you  to  know  that  that's  the  way  I 
feel  about  it — and  that  I  didn't  come  over  here  to —  I 
don't  say  that  if  in  your  case  there  had  been  any  one  else 
— but  I  see  there  isn't — Ethel  Rossiter  is  wrong — and  so 
if  I  can  do  anything  for  Hugh  and  yourself  with  the 
Brokenshires,  I — I  want  you  to  make  use  of  me." 

With  a  dignity  oddly  in  contrast  to  this  stammering 
confession,  which  was  what  it  was,  she  rose  to  her  feet  as 
Mrs.  Billing  came  back  to  us. 

The  hook-nosed  face  was  somber.  Curiosity  as  to  other 
people's  business  had  for  once  given  place  in  the  old  lady's 
thoughts  to  meditations  that  turned  inward.  I  suppose 
that  in  some  perverse  fashion  of  her  own  she  loved  her 
daughter,  and  suffered  from  her  unhappiness.  There  was 
enough  in  this  room  to  prove  to  her  how  cruelly  mere  self- 
seeking  can  overreach  itself  and  ruin  what  it  tries  to  build. 

"Well,  what  are  you  talking  about?"  she  snapped,  as 
she  approached  us.  "Hugh  Brokenshire,  I'll  bet  a  dime." 

"Fancy!"  was  the  stroke  with  which  the  English  girl, 
smiling  dimly,  endeavored  to  counter  this  attack. 

Mrs.  Billing  hardly  paused  as  she  made  her  way  toward 
the  door. 

"Don't  let  her  have  him,"  she  threw  at  Lady  Cecilia. 
" He's  not  good  enough  for  her.  She's  my  kind,"  she  went 
on,  poking  at  me  with  her  lorgnette.  "Needs  a  man  with 
brains.  Come  along,  Cissie.  Don't  mind  what  she  says. 

254 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

You  grab  Hugh  the  first  chance  you  get.  She'll  have 
bigger  fish  to  fry.  Do  come  along.  We've  had  enough 
of  this." 

Lady  Cissie  and  I  shook  hands  with  the  over-acted  list- 
lessness  of  two  daughters  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  race  trying 
to  carry  off  an  emotional  crisis  as  if  they  didn't  know  what 
it  meant.  But  after  she  had  gone  I  thought  of  her — I 
thought  of  her  with  her  Limoges-enamel  coloring,  her 
luscious  English  voice,  her  English  air  of  race,  her  dignity, 
her  style,  her  youth,  her  naivete",  her  combination  of  all 
the  qualities  that  make  human  beings  distinguished,  be- 
cause there  is  nothing  else  for  them  to  be.  I  dragged 
myself  to  the  Venetian  mirror  and  looked  into  it.  With 
my  plain  gray  frock,  my  dark  complexion,  and  my  simply 
arranged  hair,  I  was  a  poor  little  frump  whom  not  even  the 
one  man  in  five  hundred  could  find  attractive.  I  wondered 
how  Hugh  could  be  such  a  fool.  I  asked  myself  if  he  could 
go  on  being  such  a  fool  much  longer.  And  with  the  thought 
that  he  would — and  again  with  the  thought  that  he 
wouldn't — I  surprised  myself  by  bursting  into  tears. 


CHAPTER  XVII 

TN  similar  small  happenings  April  passed  and  we  had 
1  reached  the  middle  of  May.  Easter  and  the  opera  were 
over;  as  the  warm  weather  was  coming  on  people  were 
already  leaving  town  for  the  country,  the  seaside  or 
Europe.  Personally,  I  had  no  plans  beyond  spending  the 
month  of  August,  which  Mr.  Grainger  informed  me  I  was 
to  have  "off,"  in  making  a  visit  to  my  old  home  in  Halifax. 
Hugh  had  ceased  to  talk  of  immediate  marriage,  since  he 
had  all  he  could  do  to  live  on  what  he  earned  in  selling 
bonds. 

He  had  taken  that  job  when  Mildred  could  lend  him  no 
more  without  dipping  into  funds  that  had  been  his  father's. 
He  was  still  resolute  on  that  point.  He  was  resolute,  too, 
in  seeing  nothing  in  the  charms  of  Cissie  Boscobel.  He 
hated  red  hair,  he  said,  making  no  allowance  for  the 
umber-red  of  Australian  gold,  and  where  I  saw  the  lights 
of  Limoges  enamel  he  found  no  more  than  the  garish  tints 
of  a  chromolithograph.  When  I  hinted  that  he  might  be 
the  hero  of  some  young  romance  on  Cissie's  part,  he  was 
contented  to  say  "R-rot!"  with  a  contemptuous  roll  of  the 
first  consonant. 

Larry  Strangways  was  industrious,  happy,  and  prosper- 
ing. He  enjoyed  the  men  with  whom  his  work  brought 
him  into  contact,  and  I  gathered  that  his  writing  for  daily, 
weekly,  and  monthly  publications  was  bringing  him  into 

256 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

view  as  a  young  man  of  originality  and  power.  From 
himself  I  learned  that  his  small  inherited  capital  was 
doubling  and  tripling  and  quadrupling  itself  through  asso- 
ciation with  Stacy  Grainger's  enterprises.  For  Stacy 
Grainger  himself  he  continued  to  feel  an  admiration  not 
free  from  an  uneasiness,  with  regard  to  which  he  made  no 
direct  admissions. 

Of  Mrs.  Brokenshire  I  was  seeing  less.  Either  she  had 
grown  used  to  doing  without  her  lover  or  she  was  meeting 
him  in  some  other  way.  She  still  came  to  see  me  as  often 
as  once  a  week,  but  she  was  not  so  emotional  or  excitable. 
She  might  have  been  more  affectionate  than  before,  and 
yet  it  was  with  a  dignity  that  gradually  put  me  at  a 
distance. 

Cissie  Bescobel  I  didn't  meet  during  the  whole  of  the 
six  weeks  except  in  the  company  of  Mrs.  Rossiter.  That 
happened  when  once  or  twice  I  went  to  the  house  to  see 
Gladys  when  she  was  suffering  from  colds,  or  when  my 
former  employer  drove  me  round  the  Park.  Just  once  I 
got  the  opportunity  to  hint  that  Lady  Cissie  hadn't  taken 
Hugh  from  me  as  yet,  to  which  Mrs.  Rossiter  replied  that 
that  was  obviously  because  she  didn't  want  him. 

We  were  all,  therefore,  at  a  standstill,  or  moving  so 
slowly  that  I  couldn't  perceive  that  we  were  moving  at  all, 
when  in  the  middle  of  a  May  forenoon  I  was  summoned 
to  the  telephone.  I  was  not  surprised  to  find  Mr.  Strang- 
ways  at  the  other  end,  since  he  used  any  and  every  excuse 
to  call  me  up;  but  his  words  struck  me  as  those  of  a  man 
who  had  taken  leave  of  his  senses.  He  plunged  into  them 
without  any  of  the  usual  morning  greetings  or  preliminary 
remarks. 

"Are  you  game  to  go  to  Boston  by  the  five-o'clock  train 
to-day?" 

257 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

I  naturally  said,  "What?"  but  I  said  it  with  some 
emphasis. 

He  repeated  the  question  a  little  more  anxiously. 

"Could  you  be  ready  to  go  to  Boston  by  the  five-o'clock 
train  this  afternoon?" 

"Why  should  I  be?" 

He  seemed  to  hesitate  before  replying. 

"You'd  know  that,"  he  said  at  last,  "when  you  got  on 
the  train." 

"  Is  it  a  joke?"  I  inquired,  with  a  light  laugh. 

"No;  it's  not  a  joke.  It's  serious.  I  want  you  to 
take  that  train  and  go." 

"But  what  for?" 

"I've  told  you  you'd  know  that  when  you  got  on  the 
train — or  before  you  had  gone  very  far." 

"And  do  you  think  that's  information  enough?" 

"It  will  be  information  enough  for  you  when  I  say 
that  a  great  deal  may  depend  on  your  doing  as  I  ask." 

I  raised  a  new  objection. 

"  How  can  I  go  when  I've  my  work  to  attend  to  here?" 

"You  must  be  ready  to  give  that  up.  If  any  one  makes 
any  trouble,  you  must  say  you've  resigned  the  position." 

As  far  as  was  possible  over  the  wire  I  got  the  impression 
of  earnestness  on  his  part  and  perhaps  excitement;  but 
I  was  not  yet  satisfied. 

"What  shall  I  do  when  I  get  to  Boston?  Where  shall 
I  go?" 

"You'll  see.  You'll  know.  You'll  have  to  act  for 
yourself.  Trust  your  own  judgment  as  I  trust  it." 

"But,  Mr.  Strangways,  I  don't  understand  a  bit,"  I 
was  beginning  to  protest,  when  he  broke  in  on  me. 

"Oh,  don't  you  see?  It  will  all  explain  itself  as  you  go 
on.  I  can't  tell  you  about  it  in  advance.  I  don't  know. 

258 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

All  I  can  say  is  that  whatever  happens  you'll  be  needed, 
and  if  you're  needed  you'll  be  able  to  play  the  game." 

He  went  on  with  further  directions.  It  would  be  pos- 
sible to  take  my  seat  in  the  train  at  twenty  minutes  before 
the  hour  of  departure.  I  was  to  be  early  on  the  spot  so  as 
to  be  among  the  first  to  be  in  my  place.  I  was  to  take 
nothing  but  a  suit-case;  but  I  was  to  put  into  it  enough  to 
last  me  for  a  week,  or  even  for  a  week  or  two.  I  was  to 
be  prepared  for  roughing  it,  if  necessary,  or  for  anything 
else  that  developed.  He  would  send  me  my  ticket  within 
an  hour  and  provide  me  with  plenty  of  money. 

"But  what  is  it?"  I  implored  again.  "It  sounds  like 
spying,  or  the  secret  service,  or  something  melodramatic." 

"It's  none  of  those  things.  Just  be  ready.  Wait 
where  you  are  till  you  get  your  ticket  and  the  money." 

"Will  you  bring  them  yourself?" 

"No.  I  can't;  I'm  too  busy.  I'm  calling  from  a  pay- 
station.  Don't  ring  me  up  for  any  more  questions.  Just 
do  as  I've  asked  you,  and  I  know  you'll  not  regret  it — not 
as  long  as  you  live." 

He  put  up  the  receiver,  leaving  me  bewildered.  My 
ignorance  was  such  that  speculation  was  shut  out.  I  kept 
saying  to  myself :  "It  must  be  this, "  or ,  "  It  must  be  that , ' ' 
but  with  no  conviction  in  my  guesses.  One  dreadful 
suspicion  came  to  me,  but  I  firmly  put  it  away. 

A  little  after  twelve  a  special  messenger  arrived,  bringing 
my  ticket  and  five  hundred  dollars  in  bank-notes.  I  knew 
then  that  I  was  in  for  a  genuine  adventure.  At  one  I  put 
on  my  hat  and  coat,  locked  the  door  behind  me,  and  went 
off  to  my  hotel.  Mentally  I  was  leaving  a  work  to  which, 
from  certain  points  of  view,  I  was  sorry  to  say  good-by,  but 
I  could  afford  no  backward  looks. 

At  the  hotel  I  packed  my  belongings  and  left  them  so 

250 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

that  they  could  be  sent  after  me  in  case  I  should  not  return. 
I  might  be  back  the  next  morning;  but  then  I  might 
never  come  back  at  all.  I  thought  of  those  villagers  who 
from  idle  curiosity  followed  the  carriage  of  Louis  XVI.  and 
Marie  Antoinette  as  it  drove  out  of  Varennes,  some  of 
them  never  to  see  their  native  town  again  till  they  had 
been  dragged  over  half  the  battle-fields  of  Europe.  Like 
them  I  had  no  prevision  as  to  where  I  was  going  or  what 
was  to  become  of  me.  I  knew  only — gloatingly,  and  with 
a  kind  of  glory  in  the  fact — that  I  was  going  at  the  call  of 
Larry  Strangways,  to  do  his  bidding,  because  he  believed 
in  me.  But  that  thought,  too,  I  tried  to  put  out  of  my 
mind.  In  as  far  as  it  was  in  my  mind  I  did  my  best  to 
express  it  in  terms  of  prose,  seeing  myself  not  as  the  heroine 
of  a  mysterious  romance — a  view  to  which  I  was  inclined — 
but  as  a  practical  business  woman,  competent,  up-to-date, 
and  unafraid.  I  was  afraid,  mortally  afraid,  and  I  was 
neither  up-to-date  nor  competent;  but  the  fiction  sus- 
tained me  while  I  packed  my  trunks  and  sent  a  telegram 
to  Hugh. 

This  last  I  did  only  when  it  was  too  late  for  him  to 
answer  or  intercept  me. 

"  Called  suddenly  out  of  town, ' '  I  wrote.  ' '  May  lead  to 
a  new  place.  Will  write  or  wire  as  soon  as  possible." 
Having  sent  this  off  at  half  past  four,  I  took  a  taxicab  for 
the  station. 

My  instructions  were  so  far  carried  out  successfully  that, 
with  a  colored  porter  wearing  a  red  cap  to  precede  me,  I 
was  the  first  to  pass  the  barrier  leading  to  the  train,  and 
the  first  to  take  my  seat  in  the  long,  narrow  parlor-car. 
My  chair  was  two  from  the  end  toward  the  entrance  and 
exit.  Once  enthroned  within  its  upholstered  depths  I 
watched  for  strange  occurrences. 

260 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

But  I  watched  in  vain.  For  a  time  I  saw  nothing  but 
the  straight,  empty  cavern  of  the  car.  Then  a  colored 
porter,  as  like  to  my  own  as  one  pea  to  another,  came  puf- 
fing his  way  in,  dragging  valises  and  other  impedimenta, 
and  followed  by  an  old  gentleman  and  his  wife.  These  the 
porter  installed  in  chairs  toward  the  middle  of  the  car,  and, 
touching  his  cap  on  receipt  of  his  tip,  made  hastily  for  the 
door.  Similar  arrivals  came  soon  after  that,  with  much 
stowing  of  luggage  into  overhead  racks,  and  kisses,  and 
injunctions  as  to  conduct,  and  farewells.  Within  my 
range  of  vision  were  two  elderly  ladies,  a  smartly 
dressed  young  man,  a  couple  in  the  disillusioned,  surly 
stage,  a  couple  who  had  recently  been  married,  a 
clergyman,  a  youth  of  the  cheap  sporting  type.  To 
one  looking  for  the  solution  of  a  mystery  the  material 
was  not  promising. 

The  three  chairs  immediately  in  front  of  mine  remained 
unoccupied.  I  kept  my  eye  on  them,  of  course,  and  pres- 
ently got  some  reward.  Shortly  before  the  train  pulled 
out  of  the  station  a  shadow  passed  me  which  I  knew  to  be 
that  of  Larry  Strangways.  He  went  on  to  the  fourth  seat, 
counting  mine  as  the  first,  and,  having  reached  it,  turned 
round  and  looked  at  me.  He  looked  at  me  gravely,  with 
no  sign  of  recognition  beyond  a  shake  of  the  head.  I 
understood  then  that  I  was  not  to  recognize  him,  and  that 
in  the  adventure,  however  it  turned  out,  we  were  to  be  as 
strangers. 

One  more  thing  I  saw.  He  had  never  been  so  pale  or 
grim  or  determined  in  all  the  time  I  had  known  him.  I 
had  hardly  supposed  that  it  was  in  him  to  be  so  deter- 
mined, so  grim,  or  so  pale.  I  gathered  that  he  was  taking 
our  mission  more  to  heart  than  I  had  supposed,  and  that, 
prompt  in  action  as  I  had  been,  I  was  considering  it  too 

261 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

flippantly.  Inwardly  I  prayed  for  nerve  to  support  him, 
and  for  that  presence  of  mind  which  would  tell  me  what  to 
do  when  there  was  anything  to  be  done. 

Perhaps  it  increased  my  zeal  that  he  was  so  handsome. 
Straight  and  slim  and  upright,  his  features  were  of  that 
lean,  blond,  regular  type  I  used  to  consider  Anglo-Saxon, 
but  which,  now  that  I  have  seen  it  in  so  many  Scandina- 
vians, I  have  come  to  ascribe  to  the  Norse  strain  in  our 
blood.  The  eyes  were  direct;  the  chin  was  firm;  the 
nose  as  straight  as  an  ancient  Greek's.  The  relatively 
small  mouth  was  adorned  by  a  relatively  small  mustache, 
twisted  up  at  the  ends,  of  the  color  of  the  coffee-bean,  and, 
to  my  admiring  feminine  appreciation,  blooming  on  his 
face  like  a  flower. 

His  neat  spring  suit  was  also  of  the  color  of  the  coffee^ 
bean,  and  so  was  his  soft  felt  hat.  In  his  shirt  there  were 
lines  of  tan  and  violet,  and  tan  and  violet  appeared  in  the 
tie  beneath  which  a  soft  collar  was  pinned  with  a  gold 
safety  pin.  The  yellow  gloves  that  men  have  affected  of 
late  years  gave  a  pleasant  finish  to  this  costume,  which 
was  quite  complete  when  he  pulled  from  his  bag  an  Eng- 
lish  traveling-cap  of  several  shades  of  tan  and  put  it  on. 
He  also  took  out  a  book,  stretching  himself  in  his  chair  in 
such  a  way  that  the  English  traveling-cap  was  all  I  could 
henceforth  see  of  his  personality. 

I  give  these  details  because  they  entered  into  the  mingled 
unwillingness  and  zest  with  which  I  found  myself  dragged 
on  an  errand  to  which  I  had  no  clue.  Still  less  had  I  a  clue 
when  the  train  began  to  move,  and  I  had  nothing  but  the 
view  of  the  English  traveling-cap  to  bear  me  company. 
But  no,  I  had  one  other  detail.  Before  sitting  down  Mr. 
Strangways  had  carefully  separated  his  own  hand-luggage 
from  that  of  the  person  who  would  be  behind  him,  and 

262 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

which  included  an  ulster,  a  walking-stick,  and  a  case  of 
golf-clubs.  I  inferred,  therefore,  that  the  wayfarer  who 
owned  one  of  the  two  chairs  between  Mr.  Strangways  and 
myself  must  be  a  man.  The  chair  directly  in  front  of 
mine  remained  empty. 

As  we  passed  into  the  tunnel  my  mind  lashed  wildly 
about  in  search  of  explanations,  the  only  one  I  could  find 
being  that  Larry  Strangways  was  kidnapping  me.  On 
arriving  in  Boston  I  might  find  myself  confronted  by  a 
marriage  license  and  a  clergyman.  If  so,  I  said  to  myself, 
with  an  extraordinary  thrill,  there  would  be  nothing  for 
it  but  submission  to  this  force  majeure,  though  I  had  to 
admit  that  the  averted  head,  the  English  traveling-cap, 
and  the  intervening  ulster,  walking-stick,  and  golf-clubs 
worked  against  my  theory.  I  was  dreaming  in  this  way 
when  the  train  emerged  from  the  tunnel  and  stopped  so 
briefly  at  One  Hundred  and  Twenty-fifth  Street  that,  con- 
sidering it  afterward,  I  concluded  that  the  pause  had  been 
arranged  for.  It  was  just  long  enough  for  an  odd  little 
bundle  of  womanhood  to  be  pulled  and  shoved  on  the  car 
and  thrown  into  the  seat  immediately  in  front  of  mine. 
I  choose  my  verbs  with  care,  since  they  give  the  effect 
produced  on  me.  The  little  woman,  who  was  swathed  in 
black  veils  and  clad  in  a  long  black  shapeless  coat,  seemed 
not  to  act  of  her  own  volition  and  to  be  more  dead  than 
alive.  The  porter  who  had  brought  her  in  flung  down  her 
two  or  three  bags  and  waited,  significantly,  though  the 
train  was  already  creeping  its  way  onward.  She  was 
plainly  unused  to  fending  for  herself,  and  only  when,  as  a 
reminder,  the  man  had  touched  his  hat  a  second  time  did  it 
occur  to  her  what  she  had  to  do.  Hastily  unfastening  a 
small  bag,  she  pulled  out  a  handful  of  money  and  thrust  it 
at  him.  The  man  grinned  and  was  gone,  after  which  she 
18  263 


THE;  HIGH  HEART 

sagged  back  helplessly  into  her  seat,  the  satchel  open  in 
her  lap. 

That  dreadful  suspicion  which  had  smitten  me  earlier 
in  the  day  came  back  again,  but  the  new-comer  was  so 
stiflingly  wrapped  up  that  even  I  could  not  be  sure.  She 
reminded  me  of  nothing  so  much  as  of  the  veiled  Begum 
of  Bhopal  as  she  sat  in  the  durbar  with  the  other  Indian 
potentates,  her  head  done  up  in  a  bag,  as  seen  in  the  pic- 
tures in  the  illustrated  London  papers.  For  a  lady  who 
wished  to  pass  unperceived  it  was  perfect — for  every  eye  in 
the  car  was  turned  on  her.  I  myself  studied  her,  of 
course,  searching  for  something  to  confirm  my  fears,  but 
finding  nothing  I  could  take  as  convincing.  For  the  mat- 
ter of  that,  as  she  sat  huddled  in  the  enormous  chair  I 
could  see  little  beyond  a  swathing  of  veils  round  a  close- 
fitting  hat  and  the  folds  of  the  long  black  coat.  The 
easiest  inference  was  that  she  might  be  some  poor  old 
thing  whom  her  relatives  were  anxious  to  be  rid  of,  which 
was,  I  think,  the  conclusion  most  of  our  neighbors  drew. 
Speaking  of  neighbors,  I  had  noticed  that  in  spite  of  the 
disturbance  caused  by  this  curious  entrance,  Larry  Strang- 
ways  had  not  turned  his  head. 

I  could  only  sit,  therefore,  and  wait  for  enlightenment, 
or  for  an  opportunity.  Both  came  when,  some  half -hour 
later,  the  ticket-collectors  passed  slowly  down  the  aisle. 
Other  passengers  got  ready  for  them  in  advance,  but  the 
little  begum  in  front  of  me  did  nothing.  When  at  last 
the  collectors  were  before  her  she  came  to  herself  with  a 
start. 

She  came  to  herself  with  a  start,  seizing  her  satchel 
awkwardly  and  spilling  its  contents  on  the  floor.  The 
tickets  came  out,  and  some  mpney.  The  collectors  picked 
up  the  tickets  and  began  to  pencil  and  tear  them;  the 

264 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

youth  of  the  cheap  sporting  type  and  I  went  after  the  coins. 
Since  I  was  a  young  woman  and  the  lady  with  her  head  in 
a  bag  might  be  taken  for  an  old  one,  I  had  no  difficulty  in 
securing  his  harvest,  which  he  handed  over  to  me  with  an 
ingratiating  leer.  Returning  the  leer  as  much  in  his  own 
style  as  I  could  render  it,  I  offered  the  handful  of  silver  and 
copper  to  its  owner.  To  do  this  I  stood  as  directly  as 
might  be  in  front  of  her,  and  when,  inadvertently,  she 
raised  her  head  I  tried  to  look  her  in  the  eyes. 

I  couldn't  see  them.  The  shimmer  I  caught  behind 
the  two  or  three  veils  might  have  been  any  one's  eyes. 
But  in  the  motion  of  the  hand  that  took  the  money, 
and  in  the  silvery  tinkle  of  the  voice  that  made  itself 
as  low  as  possible  in  murmuring  the  words,  "Thank 
you!"  I  couldn't  be  mistaken.  It  was  enough.  If  I 
hadn't  seen  her  she  at  least  had  seen  me,  and  so  I  went 
back  to  my  seat. 

I  had  got  the  first  part  of  my  revelation.  With  the  aid 
of  the  ulster,  the  walking-stick,  and  the  golf-clubs  I  could 
guess  at  the  rest.  I  knew  now  why  Larry  Strangways 
wanted  me  there,  but  I  didn't  know  what  I  was  to  do.  By 
myself  I  could  do  nothing.  Unless  the  little  begum  took 
the  initiative  I  shouldn't  know  where  to  begin.  I  could 
hardly  tear  off  a  disguise  she  had  chosen  to  assume,  nor 
could  I  take  it  for  granted  that  she  was  not  on  legitimate 
business. 

But  she  had  seen  me,  and  there  was  something  in  that. 
If  the  owner  of  the  vacant  chair  turned  up  he,  too,  would 
see  me,  and  he  wouldn't  wear  a  veil.  We  should  look  each 
other  in  the  eyes,  and  he  would  know  that  I  knew  what  he 
was  about  to  do.  The  situation  would  not  be  pleasant  for 
me;  but  it  would  conceivably  be  much  less  pleasant  for 
anybody  else. 

265 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

I  waited,  therefore,  watching  the  beautiful  green  coun- 
try go  tearing  by.  The  smiling  freshness  of  spring  was 
over  the  hillsides  on  the  left,  while  the  setting  sun  gilded 
the  tiny  headlands  on  the  right  and  turned  the  rapid 
succession  of  creeks  and  inlets  and  marshy  pools  into 
sheets  of  orange  and  red.  Fire  illumined  the  windows  of 
many  a  passing  house,  to  be  extinguished  instantaneously, 
and  touched  with  occasional  flames  the  cold  spring-tide 
blue  of  the  sea.  Clumps  of  forsythia  were  in  blossom,  and 
here  and  there  an  apple-tree  held  out  toward  the  sun  a 
branch  of  early  flowers. 

When  the  train  stopped  at  New  Haven  I  was  afraid 
that  the  owner  of  the  ulster  and  the  golf-clubs  would 
appear,  and  that  my  work,  whatever  it  was  to  be,  would  be 
rendered  the  more  difficult.  But  no  new  arrival  entered. 
On  the  other  hand,  the  passengers  began  to  thin  out  as 
the  time  came  for  going  to  the  dining-car.  In  the  matter 
of  food  I  determined  to  stay  at  my  post  if  I  died  of  starva- 
tion, especially  on  seeing  that  the  English  traveling-cap 
was  equally  courageous. 

Twilight  gradually  filtered  into  the  world  outside;  the 
marshes,  inlets,  and  creeks  grew  dim.  Dim  was  the  long, 
burnished  line  of  the  Sound,  above  which  I  could  soon 
make  out  a  sprinkling  of  wan  yellow  stars.  Wan  yellow 
lights  appeared  in  windows  where  no  curtains  were  drawn, 
and  what  a  few  minutes  earlier  had  been  twilight  became 
quickly  the  night.  It  was  the  wistful  time,  the  homesick, 
heart-searching  time.  If  the  little  lady  in  front  of  me 
were  to  have  qualms  as  to  what  she  was  doing  they  would 
come  then. 

And  indeed  as  I  watched  her  it  seemed  to  me  that 
she  inserted  her  handkerchief  under  her  series  of  cover- 
ings as  if  to  wipe  away  a  tear.  Presently  she  lifted 

266 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

two  unsteady  hands  and  began  to  untie  her  outer  veil. 
When  it  came  to  finding  the  pins  by  which  it  was  ad- 
justed she  fumbled  so  helplessly  that  I  took  it  on  myself 
to  lean  forward  with  the  words,  "Won't  you  allow  me?" 
I  could  do  this  without  moving  round  to  where  I  should 
have  been  obliged  to  look  her  in  the  face;  and  it  was  so 
when  I  helped  her  take  off  the  veil  underneath. 

"I'm  smothering,"  she  said,  very  much  as  it  might  have 
been  said  by  a  little  child  in  distress. 

She  wore  still  another  veil,  but  only  that  which  was 
ordinarily  attached  to  her  hat.  The  car  being  not  very 
brightly  lighted,  and  most  of  our  fellow-travelers  having 
gone  to  dinner,  she  probably  thought  she  had  little  to  fear. 
As  she  gave  no  sign  of  recognition  on  my  rendering  my 
small  services  I  subsided  again  into  my  chair. 

But  I  knew  she  was  as  conscious  of  my  presence  as  I 
was  of  hers.  It  was  not  wholly  surprising,  then,  that  some 
twenty  minutes  later  she  should  swing  round  in  the  revolv- 
ing-chair and  drop  all  disguises.  She  did  it  with  the 
words,  tearfully  yet  angrily  spoken: 

"What  are  you  doing  here?" 

"I'm  going  to  Boston,  Mrs.  Brokenshire,"  I  replied, 
meekly.  "Are  you  doing  the  same?" 

"You  know  what  I'm  doing,  and  you've  come  to  spy 
on  me." 

There  is  something  about  the  wrath  of  the  sweet,  mild, 
gentle  creature,  not  easily  provoked,  which  is  far  more 
terrible  than  the  rage  of  an  irascible  old  man  accustomed 
to  furies.  I  quailed  before  it  now,  but  not  so  much  that  I 
couldn't  outwardly  keep  my  composure. 

"If  I  know  what  you're  doing,  Mrs.  Brokenshire,"  I 
said,  gently,  "it  isn't  from  any  information  received  be- 
forehand. I  didn't  know  you  were  to  be  on  this  train  till 

267 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

you  got  in;  and  I  haven't  been  sure  it  was  you  till  this 
minute." 

"I've  a  right  to  do  as  I  please,"  she  declared,  hoarsely, 
"without  having  people  to  dog  me." 

"Do  I  strike  you  as  the  sort  of  person  who'd  do  that? 
You've  had  some  opportunity  of  knowing  me;  and  have  I 
ever  done  anything  for  which  you  didn't  first  give  me 
leave?  If  I'm  here  this  evening  and  you're  here,  too,  it's 
pure  accident — as  far  as  I'm  concerned."  I  added,  with 
some  deepening  of  the  tone,  and  speaking  slowly  so  that 
she  should  get  the  meaning  of  the  words:  "I'll  only  ven- 
ture to  surmise  that  accidents  of  that  kind  don't  happen 
for  nothing." 

I  could  just  make  out  her  swimming  eyes  as  they  stared 
at  me  through  the  remaining  veil,  which  was  as  black  and 
thick  as  a  widow's. 

"What  do  you  mean?" 

"Wouldn't  that  depend  on  what  you  mean?" 

"  If  you  think  you're  going  to  stop  me — " 

"Dear  Mrs.  Brokenshire,  I  don't  think  anything 
at  all.  How  can  I?  We're  both  going  to  Boston. 
By  a  singular  set  of  circumstances  we're  seated  side 
by  side  on  the  same  train.  What  can  I  see  more  in 
the  situation  than  that?" 

"You  do  see  more." 

"But  I'm  trying  not  to.  If  you  insist  on  betraying 
more,  when  perhaps  I'd  rather  you  wouldn't,  well,  that 
won't  be  my  fault,  will  it?" 

"Because  I've  given  you  my  confidence  once  or  twice 
isn't  a  reason  why  you  should  take  liberties  all  the  rest  of 
your  life." 

To  this,  for  a  minute,  I  made  no  reply. 

"That  hurts  me,"  I  said  at  last*  "but  I  believe  that 

268 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

when  you've  considered  it  you'll  see  that  you've  been 
unjust  tome." 

"You've  suspected  me  ever  since  I  knew  you." 

"I've  only  suspected  you  of  a  sweetness  and  kindness 
and  goodness  which  I  don't  think  you've  discovered  in 
yourself.  I've  never  said  anything  of  you,  and  never 
thought  anything,  but  what  I  told  Mr.  Brokenshire  two 
months  ago,  that  you  seem  to  me  the  loveliest  thing  God 
ever  made.  That  you  shouldn't  live  up  to  the  beauty  of 
your  character  strikes  me  as  impossible.  I'll  admit  that 
I  think  that;  and  if  you  call  it  suspicion — " 

Her  anger  began  to  pass  into  a  kind  of  childish  rebellion. 

"You've  always  talked  to  me  about  impossible  things — " 

"I  wasn't  aware  of  it.  One  has  to  have  standards  of 
life,  and  do  one's  best  to  live  up  to  them." 

"Why  should  I'  do  my  best  to  live  up  to  them  when 
other  people — •  Look  at  Madeline  Pyne,  and  a  lot  of 
women  I  know!" 

"Do  you  think  we  can  ever  judge  by  other  people,  or 
take  their  actions  as  an  example  for  our  own?  No  one 
person  can  be  more  bound  to  do  right  than  another;  and 
yet  when  it  comes  to  doing  wrong  it  might  easily  be  more 
serious  for  you  than  for  Mrs.  Pyne  or  for  me." 

"I  don't  see  why  it  should  be." 

"Because  you  have  a  national  position,  one  might  even 
say  an  international  position,  and  Mrs.  Pyne  hasn't, 
and  neither  have  I.  If  we  do  wrong,  only  our  own  little 
circles  have  to  know  about  it,  and  the  harm  we  can  do  is 
limited;  but  if  you  do  wrong  it  hurts  the  whole  country." 

"I  must  say  I  don't  see  that." 

"You're  the  wife  of  a  man  who  might  be  called  a 
national  institution — " 

"There  are  just  as  important  men  in  the  country  as  he." 

269 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

"Not  many — let  us  say,  at  a  venture,  a  hundred. 
Think  of  what  it  means  to  be  one  of  the  hundred  most 
conspicuous  women  among  a  population  of  a  hundred 
millions.  The  responsibility  must  be  tremendous." 

"I've  never  thought  of  myself  as  having  any  particular 
responsibility — not  any  more  than  anybody  else." 

"But,  of  course,  you  have.  Whatever  you  do  gets  an 
added  significance  from  the  fact  that  you're  Mrs.  Howard 
Brokenshire.  When,  for  example,  you  came  to  me  that 
day  among  the  rocks  at  Newport,  your  kindness  was  the 
more  wonderful  for  the  simple  reason  that  you  were  who 
you  were.  We  can't  get  away  from  those  considerations. 
When  you  do  right,  right  seems  somehow  to  be  made  more 
beautiful;  and  when  you  do  wrong — " 

"I  don't  think  it's  fair  to  put  me  in  a  position  like 
that." 

"I  don't  put  you  in  that  position.  Life  does  it.  You 
were  born  to  be  high  up.  When  you  fall,  therefore — " 

"  Don't  talk  about  falling." 

"But  it  would  be  a  fall,  wouldn't  it?  Don't  you  re- 
member, some  ten  or  twelve  years  ago,  how  a  Saxon  crown 
princess  left  her  home  and  her  husband  ?  Well,  all  I  mean 
is  that  because  of  her  position  her  story  rang  through  the 
world.  However  one  might  pity  unhappiness,  or  sympa- 
thize with  a  miserable  love,  there  was  something  in  it  that 
degraded  her  country  and  her  womanhood.  I  suppose  the 
poor  thing's  inability  to  live  up  to  a  position  of  honor  was 
a  blow  at  human  nature.  Don't  you  think  that  that  was 
what  we  felt?  And  in  your  case — " 

"You  mustn't  compare  me  with  her." 

"No;  I  don't — exactly.  All  I  mean  is  that  if — if  you 
do  what — what  I  think  you've  started  out  to  do — " 

She  raised  her  head  defiantly. 

270 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

"And  I'm  going  to." 

"Then  by  the  day  after  to-morrow  there  will  not  be  a 
newspaper  in  the  country  that  won't  be  detailing  the 
scandal.  It  will  be  the  talk  of  every  dub  and  every 
fireside  between  the  Atlantic  and  the  Pacific,  and 
Mexico  and  Montreal.  It  will  be  in  the  papers  of 
London  and  Paris  and  Rome  and  Berlin,  and  there'll 
be  a  week  in  which  you'll  be  the  most  discussed  per- 
son in  the  world." 

"I've  been  that  already — almost — when  Mr.  Broken- 
shire  made  his  attack  in  the  Stock  Exchange  on — " 

"But  this  would  be  different.  In  this  case  you'd  be 
pointed  at — it's  what  it  would  amount  to — as  a  woman 
who  had  gone  over  to  all  those  evil  forces  in  civilization 
that  try  to  break  down  what  the  good  forces  are  building 
up.  You'd  do  like  that  unhappy  crown  princess,  you'd 
strike  a  blow  at  your  country  and  at  all  womanhood. 
There  are  thousands  of  poor  tempted  wives  all  over  Europe 
and  America  who'll  say:  'Well,  if  she  can  do  such 
things—'" 

"Oh,  stop!" 

I  stopped.  It  seemed  to  me  that  for  the  time  being  I 
had  given  her  enough  to  think  about.  We  sat  silent, 
therefore,  looking  out  at  the  rushing  dark.  People  who 
drifted  back  from  the  dining-car  glanced  at  us,  but  soon 
were  dozing  or  absorbed  in  books. 

We  were  nearing  New  London  when  she  pointed  to  one 
of  her  bags  and  asked  me  if  I  would  mind  opening  it.  I 
welcomed  the  request  as  indicating  a  return  of  friendliness. 
Having  extracted  a  parcel  of  sandwiches,  she  unfolded  the 
napkin  in  which  they  were  wrapped  and  held  them  out  to 
me.  I  took  a  pate  de  foie-gras  and  followed  her  example 
in  nibbling  it.  On  my  own  responsibility  I  summoned  the 

271 


THE   HIGH   HEART 

porter  and  asked  him  to  bring  a  bottle  of  spring-water  and 
two  glasses. 

"  I  guess  the  old  lady's  feelin'  some  better,"  he  confided, 
when  he  had  carried  out  the  order. 

We  stopped  at  New  London,  and  went  on  again.  Hav- 
ing eaten  three  or  four  sandwiches,  I  declined  any  more, 
folding  the  remainder  in  the  napkin  and  stowing  them 
away.  The  simple  meal  we  had  shared  together  restored 
something  of  our  old-time  confidence. 

"I'm  going  to  do  it,"  she  sighed,  as  I  put  the  bag  back 
in  its  place.  "He's — he's  somewhere  on  the  train — in  the 
smoking-car,  I  suppose.  He's — he's  not  to  come  for  me 
till — till  we're  getting  near  the  Back  Bay  Station  in 
Boston." 

I  brought  out  my  question  simply,  though  I  had  been 
pondering  it  for  some  time.  "Who'll  tell  Mr.  Broken- 
shire?" 

She  moved  uncomfortably. 

"I  don't  know.  I  haven't  made  any  arrangements. 
He's  in  Newport  for  one  or  two  nights,  seeing  to  some 
small  changes  in  the  house.  I — I  had  to  take  the  oppor- 
tunity while  he  was  away."  As  if  with  a  sudden  inspira- 
tion she  glanced  round  from  staring  out  into  the  dark. 
"Would  you  do  it?" 

I  shook  my  head. 

"I  couldn't.  I've  never  seen  a  man  struck  dead, 
and—" 

She  swung  her  chair  so  as  to  face  me  more  directly. 

"Why,"  she  asked,  trembling — "why  do  you  say  that?" 

"Because,  if  I  told  him,  it's  what  I  should  have  to  look 
on  at." 

She  began  wringing  her  hands. 

"Oh  no,  you  wouldn't." 

272 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

"But  I  should.  It  would  be  his  death-sentence  at  the 
least.  It's  true  he  has  probably  received  that  already — " 

"Oh,  what  are  you  saying?  What  are  you  talking 
about?" 

' '  Only  of  what  every  one  can  see.  He's  a  stricken  man — 
you've  told  me  so  yourself." 

"Yes,  but  I  said  it  only  about  Hugh.  Lots  of  men  have 
to  go  through  troubles  on  account  of  their  children." 

"But  when  they  do  they  can  generally  get  comfort  from 
their  wives." 

She  seemed  to  stiffen. 

"  It's  not  my  fault  if  he  can't." 

"No,  of  course  not.  But  the  fact  remains  that  he 
doesn't — and  perhaps  it's  the  greatest  fact  of  all.  He 
adores  you.  His  children  may  give  him  a  great  deal  of 
anxiety  but  that's  the  sort  of  thing  any  father  looks  for 
and  can  endure.  Only  you're  not  his  child;  you're  his 
wife.  Moreover,  you're  the  wife  whom  he  worships  with  a 
slavish  idolatry.  Everything  that  nature  and  time  and 
the  world  and  wealth  have  made  of  him  he  gathers  to- 
gether and  lays  it  down  at  your  feet,  contented  if  you'll 
only  give  him  back  a  smile.  You  may  think  it  pitiful — " 

She  shuddered. 

"  I  think  it  terrible — for  me." 

"Well,  I  may  think  so,  too,  but  it's  his  life  we're  talking 
of.  His  tenure  of  that" — I  looked  at  her  steadily — 
"isn't  very  certain  as  it  is,  do  you  think?  You  know  the 
condition  of  his  heart — you've  told  me  yourself — and  as  for 
his  nervous  system,  we've  only  to  look  at  his  face  and  his 
poor  eye." 

' '  I  didn't  do  that.     It's  his  whole  life—' ' 

"But  his  whole  life  culminates  in  you.  It  works  up  to 
you,  and  you  represent  everything  he  values.  When  he 

273 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

learns  that  you've  despised  his  love  and  dishonored  his 
name — " 

Her  foot  tapped  the  floor  impatiently. 

"  You  mustn't  say  things  like  that  to  me." 

"I'm  only  saying  them,  dear  Mrs.  Brokenshire,  so  that 
you'll  know  how  they  sound.  It's  what  every  one  else  will 
be  saying  in  a  day  or  two.  You  can't  be  what — what 
you'll  be  to-morrow,  and  still  keep  any  one's  respect. 
And  so,"  I  hurried  on,  as  she  was  about  to  protest,  "when 
he  hears  what  you've  done,  you  won't  merely  have  broken 
his  heart,  you'll  have  killed  him  just  as  much  as  if  you'd 
pulled  out  a  revolver  and  shot  him." 

She  swung  back  to  the  window  again.  Her  foot  con- 
tinued to  tap  the  floor;  her  fingers  twisted  and  untwisted 
like  writhing  living  things.  I  could  see  her  bosom  rise 
and  fall  rapidly;  her  breath  came  in  short,  hard  gasps. 
When  I  wasn't  expecting  it  she  rounded  on  me  again, 
with  flames  in  her  eyes  like  those  in  a  small  tigress's. 

4 '  You're  saying  all  that  to  frighten  me ;  but — ' ' 

"I'm  saying  it  because  it's  true.  If  it  frightens 
you — " 

"But  it  doesn't." 

"Then  I've  done  neither  good  nor  harm." 

"  I've  a  right  to  be  happy." 

"Certainly,  if  you  can  be  happy  this  way." 

"And  I  can." 

"Then  there's  no  more  to  be  said.  We  can  only  agree 
with  you.  If  you  can  be  happy  when  you've  Mr.  Broken- 
shire  on  your  mind,  as  you  must  have  whether  he's  alive 
or  dead — and  if  you  can  be  happy  when  you've  desecrated 
all  the  things  your  people  and  your  country  look  to  a 
woman  in  your  position  to  uphold — then  I  don't  think 
any  one  will  say  you  nay." 

274 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

"Well,  why  shouldn't  I  be  happy?"  she  demanded,  as  if 
I  was  withholding  from  her  something  that  was  her  right. 
"Other  women — " 

"Yes,  Mrs.  Brokenshire,  other  women  besides  you  have 
tried  the  experiment  of  Anna  Kar&iina — " 

"What's  that?" 

I  gave  her  the  gist  of  Tolstoi's  romance — the  woman  who 
is  married  to  an  old  man  and  runs  away  with  a  young  one, 
living  to  see  him  weary  of  the  position  in  which  she  places 
him,  and  dying  by  her  own  act. 

As  she  listened  attentively,  I  went  on  before  she  could 
object  to  my  parable. 

"It  all  amounts  to  the  same  thing.  There's  no  happi- 
ness except  in  right;  and  no  right  that  doesn't  sooner  or 
later — sooner  rather  than  later — end  in  happiness. 
You've  told  me  more  than  once  you  didn't  believe  that; 
and  if  you  don't  I  can't  help  it." 

I  fell  back  in  my  seat,  because  for  the  moment  I  was 
exhausted.  It  was  not  merely  the  actual  situation  that 
took  the  strength  out  of  me,  but  what  I  dreaded  when  the 
man  came  for  his  prize  from  the  smoking-car.  I  might 
count  on  Larry  Strangways  to  aid  me  then,  but  as  yet  he 
had  not  recognized  my  struggle  by  so  much  as  glancing 
round. 

Nor  had  I  known  till  this  minute  how  much  I  cared  for 
the  little  creature  before  me,  or  how  deeply  I  pitied  the 
man  she  was  deserting.  I  could  see  her  as  happier  con- 
ditions would  have  made  her,  and  him  as  he  might  have 
become  if  his  nature  had  not  been  warped  by  pride.  Any 
impulse  to  strike  back  at  him  had  long  ago  died  within  me. 
It  might  as  well  have  died,  since  I  never  had  the  nerve  to 
act  on  it,  even  when  I  had  the  chance. 

She  turned  on  me  again,  with  unexpected  fierceness. 
275 


THE   HIGH    HEART 

"It  doesn't  matter  whether  I  believe  all  those  things  or 
not — now.  It's  too  late.  I've  left  home.  I've — I've 
gone  away  with  him." 

Though  I  felt  like  a  spent  prize-fighter  forced  back  into 
the  ring,  I  raised  myself  in  my  chair.  I  even  smiled, 
dimly,  in  an  effort  to  be  encouraging. 

"You've  left  home  and  you've  gone  away;  but  you 
won't  have  gone  away  with  him  till — till  you've  actually 
joined  him." 

"I've  actually  joined  him  already.  His  things  are  there 
beside  that  chair."  She  nodded  backward.  "By  the 
time  we've  passed  Providence  he'll  be — he'll  be  getting 
ready  to  come  for  me." 

I  said,  more  significantly  than  I  really  understood: 
"But  we  haven't  passed  Providence  as  yet." 

To  this  she  seemingly  paid  no  attention,  nor  did  I  give 
it  much  myself. 

"When  he  comes,"  she  exclaimed,  lyrically,  "it  will  be 
like  a  marriage — " 

I  ventured  much  as  I  interrupted. 

"No,  it  will  never  be  like  a  marriage.  There'll  be  too 
much  that's  unholy  in  it  all  for  anything  like  a  true  mar- 
riage ever  to  become  possible,  not  even  if  death  or  divorce 
— and  it  will  probably  be  the  one  or  the  other — were  to 
set  you  free." 

That  she  found  these  words  arresting  I  could  tell  by  the 
stunned  way  in  which  she  stared. 

"Death  or  divorce!"  she  echoed,  after  long  waiting. 
"He — he  may  divorce  me  quietly — I  hope  he  will — but — 
but  he  won't — he  won't  die." 

"He'll  die  if  you  kill  him,"  I  declared,  grimly.  I  con- 
tinued to  be  grim.  "He  may  die  before  long,  whether  you 
kill  him  or  not — the  chances  are  that  he  will.  But  living 

276 


THE   HIGH    HEART 

or  dead,  as  I've  said  already,  he'll  stand  between  you  and 
anything  you  look  for  as  happiness — after  to-night." 

She  threw  herself  back  into  the  depths  of  her  chair  and 
moaned.  Luckily  there  was  no  one  near  enough  to  observe 
the  act.  As  we  talked  in  low  tones  we  could  not  be  heard 
above  the  rattle  of  the  train,  and  I  think  I  passed  as  a  com- 
panion or  trained  nurse  in  attendance  on  a  nervous  invalid. 

"Oh,  what's  the  use?"  she  exclaimed  at  last,  in  a  fit  of 
desperation.  "I've  done  it.  It's  too  late.  Every  one 
will  know  I've  gone  away — even  if  I  get  out  at  Provi- 
dence." 

I  am  sorry  to  have  to  admit  that  the  suggestion  of  get- 
ting out  at  Providence  startled  me.  I  had  been  so  stupid 
as  not  to  think  of  it,  even  when  I  had  made  the  remark  that 
we  had  not  as  yet  passed  that  town.  All  I  had  foreseen 
was  the  struggle  at  the  end  of  the  journey,  when  Larry 
Strangways  and  I  should  have  to  fight  for  this  woman 
with  the  powers  of  darkness,  as  in  medieval  legends  angels 
and  devils  fought  over  a  contested  soul. 

I  took  up  the  idea  with  an  enthusiasm  I  tried  to  conceal 
beneath  a  smile  of  engaging  sweetness. 

"They  may  know  that  you've  gone  away;  but  they  can 
also  know  that  you've  gone  away  with  me." 

"With  you?    You're  going  to  Boston." 

"I  could  wait  till  to-morrow.  If  you  wanted  to  get  off 
at  Providence  I  could  do  it,  too." 

"  But  I  don't  want  to.  I  couldn't  let  him  expect  to  find 
me  here — and  then  discover  that  I  wasn't." 

"He  would  be  disappointed  at  that,  of  course,"  I  rea' 
soned,  "but  he  wouldn't  take  it  as  the  end  of  all  things. 
If  you  got  off  at  Providence  there  would  be  nothing  ir- 
revocable in  that  step,  whereas  there  would  be  in  your  go- 
ing on.  You  could  go  away  with  him  later,  if  you  found 

277 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

you  had  to  do  it;  but  if  you  continue  to-night  you  can  never 
come  back  again.  Don't  you  see?  Isn't  it  worth  turning 
over  in  your  mind  a  second  time — especially  as  I'm  here 
to  help  you  ?  If  you're  meant  to  be  a  Madeline  Pyne  or  an 
Anna  Kare"nina,  you'll  get  another  opportunity." 

"Oh  no,  I  sha'n't,"  she  sobbed.  "If  I  don't  go  on  to- 
night, hell  never  ask  me  again." 

"He  may  never  ask  you  again  in  this  way;  but  isn't  it 
possible  that  there  may  eventually  be  other  ways?  Don't 
make  me  put  that  into  plainer  words.  Just  wait.  Let 
life  take  charge  of  it."  I  seized  both  her  hands.  "Dar- 
ling Mrs.  Brokenshire,  you  don't  know  yourself.  You're 
too  fine  to  be  ruined ;  you're  too  exquisite  to  be  just  thrown 
away.  Even  the  hungry,  passionate  love  of  the  man  in 
the  smoking-car  must  see  that  and  know  it.  If  he  comes 
back  here  and  finds  you  gone — or  imagines  that  you  never 
came  at  all — he'll  only  honor  and  love  you  the  more,  and 
go  on  wanting  you  still.  Come  with  me.  Let  us  go. 
We  can't  be  far  from  Providence  now.  I  can  take 
care  of  you.  I  know  just  what  we  ought  to  do.  I 
didn't  come  here  to  sit  beside  you  of  my,  own  free 
will;  but  since  I  am  here  doesn't  it  seem  to  you  as 
if — as  if  I  had  been  sent?" 

As  she  was  sobbing  too  unrestrainedly  to  say  anything 
in  words,  I  took  the  law  into  my  own  hands.  The  porter 
had  already  begun  dusting  the  dirt  from  the  passengers 
who  were  to  descend  at  Providence  on  to  those  who  were 
going  to  Boston.  Making  my  way  up  to  him,  I  had  the 
inspiration  to  say: 

"The  old  lady  I'm  with  isn't  quite  so  well,  and  we're 
going  to  stop  here  for  the  night." 

He  grinned,  with  a  fine  show  of  big  white  teeth. 

"All  right,  lady;  I'll  take  care  of  you.  Cranky  old 

278 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

bunch,  ain't  she?  Handle  a  good  many  like  that  between 
Boston  and  Ne"  Yawk." 

Mrs.  Brokenshire  made  no  resistance  when  I  fastened 
the  lighter  of  her  two  veils  about  her  head,  folding  the 
other  and  putting  it  away.  Neither  did  she  resist  when 
I  drew  her  cloak  about  her  and  put  on  my  own  coat.  But 
as  the  train  drew  into  Providence  station  and  she  struggled 
to  her  feet  in  response  to  my  touch  on  her  arm,  I  was 
obliged  to  pull  and  drag  and  push  her,  till  she  was  finally 
lifted  to  the  platform. 

Before  leaving  the  car,  however,  I  took  time  to  glance 
at  the  English  traveling-cap.  I  noted  then  what  I  had 
noted  throughout  the  journey.  Not  once  did  the  head 
beneath  it  turn  in  my  direction.  Of  whatever  had  hap- 
pened since  leaving  the  main  station  in  New  York  Larry 
Strangways  could  say  that  he  was  wholly  unaware. 

19 


CHAPTER  XVIII 

WHAT  happened  on  the  train  after  Mrs.  Brokenshire 
and  I  had  left  it  I  heard  from  Mr.  Strangways. 
Having  got  it  from  him  in  some  detail,  I  can  give  it  in  my 
own  words  more  easily  than  in  his. 

I  may  be  permitted  to  state  here  how  much  and  how 
little  of  the  romance  between  Mr.  Grainger  and  Mrs. 
Brokenshire  Larry  Strangways  knew.  He  knew  next  to 
nothing — but  he  inferred  a  good  deal.  From  facts  I  gave 
him  once  or  twice  in  hours  of  my  own  perplexity  he  had 
been  able  to  get  light  on  certain  matters  which  had  come 
under  his  observation  as  Mr.  Grainger's  confidential  man, 
and  to  which  otherwise  he  would  have  had  no  key.  He 
inferred,  for  instance,  that  Mrs.  Brokenshire  wrote  daily 
to  her  lover,  and  that  occasionally,  at  long  intervals,  her 
lover  could  safely  write  to  her.  He  inferred  that  when 
their  meetings  had  ended  in  one  place  they  were  taken  up 
discreetly  at  another,  but  only  with  difficulty  and  danger. 
He  inferred  that  the  man  chafed  against  this  restraint,  and 
as  he  had  got  out  of  it  with  other  women,  he  was  planning 
to  get  out  of  it  again.  I  understood  that  had  Mrs.  Broken- 
shire been  the  only  such  instance  in  Stacy  Grainger's 
career  Larry  Strangways  might  not  have  felt  impelled  to 
interfere;  but  seeing  from  the  beginning  that  his  employer 
"had  a  weakness,"  he  felt  it  only  right  to  help  me  save  a 
woman  for  whom  he  knew  I  cared. 

280 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

I  have  never  wholly  understood  why  he  believed  that 
the  situation  had  worked  up  to  a  crisis  on  that  particular 
day;  but  having  watched  the  laying  of  the  mine,  he  could 
hardly  do  anything  but  expect  the  explosion  on  the  appli- 
cation of  the  match. 

When  Mr.  Grainger  had  bidden  him  that  morning  go  to 
the  station  and  secure  a  drawing-room,  or,  if  that  was 
impossible,  two  parlor-car  seats,  on  the  five-o'clock  for 
Boston,  he  had  reasons  for  following  the  course  of  which 
I  have  briefly  given  the  lines.  No  drawing-room  was 
available,  because  any  that  was  not  sold  he  bought  for 
himself  in  order  to  set  the  stage  according  to  his  own  ideas. 
How  far  he  was  justified  in  this  will  be  a  matter  of  opinion. 
Some  may  commend  him,  while  others  will  accuse  him  of 
unwarrantable  interference.  My  own  judgment  being  of 
no  importance  I  hold  it  in  suspense,  giving  the  incidents 
just  as  they  occurred. 

It  must  be  evident  that  as  Mr.  Strangways  didn't  know 
what  was  to  happen  he  could  have  no  plan  of  action.  All 
he  could  arrange  for  was  that  he  and  I  should  be  on  the 
spot.  As  it  is  difficult  for  guilty  lovers  to  elope  while 
acquaintances  are  looking  on,  he  was  resolved  that  they 
should  find  elopement  difficult.  For  anything  else  he 
relied  on  chance — and  on  me.  Chance  favored  him  in 
keeping  Stacy  Grainger  out  of  sight,  in  putting  Mrs. 
Brokenshire  next  to  me,  and  in  making  the  action,  such  as 
it  was,  run  smoothly.  Had  I  known  that  he  relied  on  me 
I  should  have  been  more  terrified  than  I  actually  was, 
since  I  was  relying  on  him. 

It  will  be  seen,  then,  that  at  the  moment  when  Mrs. 
Brokenshire  and  I  left  the  train  Larry  Strangways  had  but 
a  vague  idea  of  what  had  taken  place.  He  merely  con- 
jectured from  the  swish  of  skirts  that  we  had  gone.  His 

281 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

next  idea  was,  as  he  phrased  it,  to  make  himself  scarce  on 
his  own  account;  but  in  that  his  efforts  miscarried. 

Hoping  to  slip  into  another  car  and  thus  avoid  a  meeting 
with  the  outmanceuvered  lover,  he  was  snapping  the  clasp 
of  the  bag  into  which  he  had  thrust  his  cap  when  he  per- 
ceived a  tall  figure  enter  the  car  by  the  forward  end.  To 
escape  recognition  he  bent  his  head,  pretending  to  search 
for  something  on  the  floor.  The  tall  figure  passed,  but 
came  back  again.  It  was  necessary  that  he  should  come 
back,  because  of  the  number  on  the  ticket,  the  ulster,  the 
walking-stick,  and  the  golf -clubs. 

What  Stacy  Grainger  saw,  of  course,  was  three  empty 
seats,  with  his  secretary  sitting  in  a  fourth.  The  sight  of 
the  three  empty  seats  was  doubtless  puzzling  enough,  but 
that  of  the  secretary  must  have  been  bewildering.  With- 
out turning  his  head  Mr.  Strangways  knew  by  his  sixth 
and  seventh  senses  that  his  employer  was  comparing  the 
number  on  his  ticket  with  that  of  the  seat,  examining  the 
hand-luggage  to  make  sure  it  was  his  own,  and  otherwise 
drawing  the  conclusion  that  his  faculties  hadn't  left  him. 
For  a  private  secretary  who  had  ventured  so  far  out  of  his 
line  of  duty  it  was  a  trying  minute;  but  he  turned  and 
glanced  upward  only  on  feeling  a  tap  on  his  shoulder. 

"Hello,  Strangways!  Is  it  you?  What's  the  meaning 
of  this?" 

Strangways  rose.  As  the  question  had  been  asked  in 
perplexity  rather  than  in  anger,  he  could  answer  calmly. 

"The  meaning  of  what,  sir?" 

"Where  the  deuce  are  you  going?  What  are  you  doing 
here?" 

"I'm  going  to  Boston,  sir." 

"What  for?    Who  told  you  you  could  go  to  Boston?" 

The  tone  began  to  nettle  the  young  man,  who  was  not 

282 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

accustomed  to  being  spoken  to  so  imperiously  before 
strangers. 

"No  one  told  me,  sir.  I  didn't  ask  permission.  I'm 
my  own  master.  I've  left  your  employ." 

" The  devil  you  have !     Since  when?" 

"Since  this  morning.  I  couldn't  tell  you,  because  when 
you  left  the  office  after  I'd  given  you  the  tickets  you  didn't 
come  back." 

"And  do  you  call  that  decent  to  a  man  who's —  But 
no  matter!"  He  pointed  to  the  seat  next  his  own. 
"Where's  the — the  lady  who's  been  sitting  here?" 

Mr.  Strangways  raised  his  eyebrows  innocently,  and 
shook  his  head. 

"I  haven't  seen  any  lady,  sir." 

"What?  There  must  have  been  a  lady  here.  Was  to 
have  got  on  at  One  Hundred  and  Twenty-fifth  Street." 

"Possibly;  I  only  say  I  didn't  see  her.  As  a  matter  of 
fact,  I've  been  reading,  and  I  don't  think  I  looked  round 
during  the  entire  journey.  Hadn't  we  better  not  speak  so 
loud?"  he  suggested,  in  a  lower  tone.  "People  are  lis- 
tening to  us." 

"Oh,  let  them  go  to —  Now  look  here,  Strangways," 
he  began  again,  speaking  softly,  but  excitedly,  "there 
must  be  some  explanation  to  this." 

"Of  course  there  must  be;  only  I  can't  give  it.  Per- 
haps the  porter  could  tell  us.  Shall  I  call  him?" 

Mr.  Grainger  nodded  his  permission.  The  colored 
man  with  the  flashing  teeth  came  up  on  the  broad  grin, 
showing  them. 

"Yep,"  he  replied,  in  answer  to  the  question:  "they 
was  two  ladies  in  them  seats  all  the  way  f'um  Ne'  Yawk." 

"Two  ladies?"  Mr.  Grainger  cried,  incredulously. 

"Yes,  gen'lemen.  Two  different  ladies.  The  young 

283 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

one  she  got  in  at  the  Grand  Central — fust  one  in  the  cyar — 
and  the  ole  one  at  a  Hundred  and  Twenty-fifth  Street." 

"Do  you  mean  to  say  it  was  an  old  lady  who  got  in 
there?" 

"Yep,  gen'lemen;  ole  and  cranky.  I  'ain't  handled  'em 
no  crankier  not  since  I've  bin  on  this  beat.  Sick,  too. 
They  done  get  off  at  Providence,  though  they  was  booked 
right  through  to  Boston,  because  the  ole  lady  she  couldn't 
go  no  farther." 

Mr.  Grainger  was  not  a  sleuth-hound,  but  he  did  what 
he  could  in  the  way  of  verification. 

"Did  the  young  lady  wear — wear  a  veil?" 

The  porter  scratched  his  head. 

"Come  to  think  of  it  she  did — one  of  them  there  flowery 
things" — his  forefinger  made  little  whirling  designs  on 
his  coffee-colored  skin — "what  makes  a  kind  of  pattern- 
like  all  over  people's  face." 

Because  he  was  frantically  seeking  a  clue,  Mr.  Grainger 
blurted  out  the  foolish  question: 

"Was  she— pretty?" 

To  answer  as  a  connoisseur  and  as  man  to  man  the 
African  took  his  time. 

"Wa-al,  not  to  say  p'ooty,  she  wasn't — but  she'd  pa-ss. 
A  little  black-eyed  thing,  an'  awful  smart.  One  of  'em 
trained  nusses  like — very  perlite,  but  a  turr'ble  boss  you 
could  see  she'd  be,  for  all  she  was  so  soft-spoken.  Had 
cyare  of  the  ole  one,  who  was  what  you'd  call  plumb 
crazy." 

"That  will  do."  The  trail  seemed  not  worth  following 
any  further.  "There's  some  mistake,"  he  continued, 
furiously.  "She  must  be  in  one  of  the  other  cars." 

Like  a  collie  from  the  leash  he  bounded  off  to  make  new 
investigations.  In  five  minutes  he  was  back  again,  pass- 

284 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

ing  up  the  length  of  the  car  and  going  on  to  examine 
those  at  the  other  end  of  the  train.  His  face  as  he 
returned  was  livid;  his  manner,  as  far  as  he  dared 
betray  himself  before  a  dozen  or  twenty  spectators, 
that  of  a  balked  wild  animal. 

"Strangways,"  he  swore,  as  he  dropped  to  the  arm  of 
his  seat,  "you're  going  to  answer  for  this." 

Strangways  replied,  composedly: 

"I'm  ready  to  answer  for  anything  I  know.  You  can't 
expect  me  to  be  responsible  for  what  I  don't  know  any- 
thing about." 

He  slapped  his  knee. 

"What  are  you  doing  in  that  particular  chair?  Even 
if  you're  going  to  Boston,  why  aren't  you  somewhere 
else?" 

"That's  easily  explained.  You  told  me  to  get  two 
tickets  by  this  train.  Knowing  that  I  was  to  travel  by  it 
myself  I  asked  for  three.  I  dare  say  it  was  stupid  of  me 
not  to  think  that  the  propinquity  would  be  open  to  objec- 
tion; but  as  it's  a  public  conveyance,  and  there's  not 
generally  anything  secret  or  special  about  a  trip  of  the 
kind—" 

"Why  in  thunder  didn't  you  get  a  drawing-room,  as  I 
told  you  to?" 

"For  the  reason  I've  given — there  were  none  to  be  had. 
If  you  could  have  taken  me  into  your  confidence  a  little — 
But  I  suppose  that  wasn't  possible." 

To  this  there  was  no  response,  but  a  series  of  muttered 
oaths  that  bore  the  same  relation  to  soliloquy  as  a  frenzied 
lion's  growl.  For  some  twenty  minutes  they  sat  in  the 
same  attitudes,  Strangways  quiet,  watchful,  alert,  ready 
for  any  turn  the  situation  might  take,  the  other  man 
stretched  on  the  arm  of  his  chair,  indifferent  to  comfort, 

285 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

cursing  spasmodically,  perplexity  on  his  forehead,  rage  in 
his  eyes,  and  something  that  was  folly,  futility,  and  help- 
lessness all  over  him. 

Almost  no  further  conversation  passed  between  them 
till  they  got  out  in  Boston.  In  the  crowd  Strangways 
endeavored  to  go  off  by  himself,  but  found  Mr.  Grainger 
constantly  beside  him.  He  was  beside  him  when  they 
reached  the  place  where  taxicabs  were  called,  and  ordered 
his  porter  to  call  one. 

"  Get  in,"  he  said,  then.  * 

Larry  Strangways  protested. 

"I'm  going  to — " 

I  must  be  sufficiently  unlady-like  to  give  Mr.  Grainger's 
response  just  as  it  was  spoken,  because  it  strikes  me  as 
characteristic  of  men. 

"Oh,  hell !    Get  in.     You're  coming  with  me. " 

Characteristic  of  men  was  the  rest  of  the  evening.  In 
spite  of  what  had  happened — and  had  not  happened — 
Messrs.  Grainger  and  Strangways  partook  of  an  excellent 
supper  together,  eating  and  drinking  with  appetite,  and 
smoking  their  cigars  with  what  looked  like  an  air  of  tran- 
quillity. Though  the  fury  of  the  balked  wild  animal 
returned  to  Stacy  Grainger  by  fits  and  starts,  it  didn't 
interfere  with  his  relish  of  his  food  and  only  once  did  it 
break  its  bounds.  That  was  when  he  struck  the  arm  of 
his  chair,  saying  beneath  his  breath,  and  yet  audibly 
enough  for  his  secretary  to  hear: 

"She  funked  it — damn  her!" 

Larry  Strangways  then  took  it  on  himself  to  say: 

"I  don't  know  the  lady,  sir,  to  whom  you  refer,  nor  the 
reasons  she  may  have  had  for  funking  it,  but  may  I  advise 
you  for  your  own  peace  of  mind  to  withdraw  the  two 
concluding  syllables?" 

286 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

A  pair  of  fierce,  melancholy  eyes  rested  on  him  for  a 
second  uncomprehendingly. 

"All  right,"  the  crestfallen  lover  groaned  heavily  at 
last.  ' '  I  may  as  well  take  them  back. ' ' 

Characteristic  of  women  were  my  experiences  while 
this  was  happening. 

Bundled  out  into  the  station  at  Providence  no  two  poor 
females  could  ever  have  been  more  forlorn.  Standing  in 
the  waiting-room  with  our  bags  around  us  I  felt  like  one 
of  those  immigrant  women,  ignorant  of  the  customs  and 
language  of  the  country  to  which  they  have  come,  I  had 
sometimes  seen  on  docks  at  Halifax.  As  for  Mrs.  Broken- 
shire,  she  was  as  little  used  to  the  unarranged  as  if  she  had 
been  a  royalty.  Never  before  had  she  dropped  in  this 
way  down  upon  the  unexpected;  never  before  had  she  been 
unmet,  unwelcomed,  and  unprepared.  She  was  bouleversee 
— overturned.  Were  she  falling  from  an  aeroplane  she 
could  not  have  been  more  at  a  loss  as  to  where  she  was 
going  to  alight.  Small  wonder  was  it  that  she  should  sit 
down  on  one  of  her  own  valises  and  begin  to  cry  dis- 
tressfully. 

That,  for  the  minute,  I  was  obliged  to  disregard.  If  she 
had  to  cry  she  must  cry.  I  could  hear  the  train  puffing  out 
of  the  station,  and  as  far  as  that  went  she  was  safe.  My 
first  preoccupations  had  to  do  with  where  we  were  to  go. 

For  this  I  made  inquiries  of  the  porter,  who  named  what 
he  considered  to  be  the  two  or  three  best  hotels.  I  went 
to  the  ticket-office  and  put  the  same  question,  getting 
approximately  the  same  answer.  Then,  seeing  a  well- 
dressed  man  and  lady  enter  the  station  from  a  private 
car,  which  I  could  discern  outside,  I  repeated  my  investiga- 
tions, explaining  that  I  had  come  from  New  York  with  an 
invalid  lady  who  had  not  been  well  enough  to  continue  the 

287 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

journey.  They  told  me  I  could  make  no  mistake  in  going 
to  one  of  the  houses  already  named  by  my  previous 
informants;  and  so,  gathering  up  the  hand-luggage  and 
Mrs.  Brokenshire,  we  set  forth. 

At  the  hotel  we  secured  an  apartment  of  sitting-room 
and  two  bedrooms,  registering  our  names  as  "Miss  Adare 
and  friend."  I  ordered  the  daintiest  supper  the  house 
could  provide  to  be  served  up-stairs,  with  a  small  bottle  of 
champagne  to  inspirit  us ;  but,  unlike  the  two  heroes  of  the 
episode,  neither  of  us  could  do  more  than  taste  food  and 
drink.  No  kidnapped  princess  in  a  fairy-tale  was  ever 
more  lovely  or  pathetic  than  Mrs.  Brokenshire;  no  giant 
ogre  more  monstrously  cruel  than  myself.  Now  that  it 
was  done,  I  figured,  both  in  her  eyes  and  in  my  own,  not 
as  a  savior,  but  a  capturer. 

She  had  dried  her  tears,  but  she  had  dried  them  resent- 
fully. As  far  as  possible  she  didn't  look  at  me,  but  when 
she  couldn't  help  it  the  reproach  in  her  glances  almost 
broke  my  heart.  Though  I  knew  I  had  acted  for  the  best, 
she  made  me  feel  a  bad  angel,  a  marplot,  a  spoil-sport.  I 
had  thwarted  a  dream  that  was  as  full  of  bliss  as  it  was  of 
terror,  and  reduced  the  dramatic  to  the  commonplace. 
Here  she  was  picking  at  a  cold  quail  in  aspic  face  to  face 
with  me  when  she  might  have  been.  .  .  . 

I  couldn't  help  seeing  myself  as  she  saw  me,  and  when 
we  had  finished  what  was  not  a  repast  I  put  her  to  bed 
with  more  than  the  humility  of  a  serving-maid.  You  will 
think  me  absurd,  but  when  those  tender  eyes  were  turned 
on  me  with  their  silent  rebuke,  I  would  gladly  have  put 
her  back  on  the  train  again  and  hurried  her  on  to  destruc- 
tion. As  the  dear  thing  sobbed  on  her  pillow  I  laid  my 
head  beside  hers  and  sobbed  with  her. 

But  I  couldn't  sob  very  long,  as  I  still  had  duties  to  ful- 

288 


THE    HIGH- HEART 

fil.  It  was  of  little  use  to  have  her  under  my  care  at 
Providence  unless  those  who  would  in  the  end  be  most 
concerned  as  to  her  whereabouts  were  to  know  the  facts — 
or  the  approximate  facts — from  the  start.  It  was  a  case  in 
which  doubt  for  a  night  might  be  doubt  for  a  lifetime;  and 
so  when  she  was  sufficiently  calm  for  me  to  leave  her  I 
went  down-stairs. 

Though  I  had  not  referred  to  it  again,  I  had  made  a 
mental  note  of  the  fact  that  Mr.  Brokenshire  was  at  New- 
port. If  at  Newport  I  knew  he  could  be  nowhere  but  in 
one  hotel.  Within  fifteen  minutes  I  was  talking  to  him 
on  the  telephone. 

He  was  plainly  annoyed  at  being  called  to  the  instru- 
ment so  late  as  half  past  ten.  When  I  said  I  was  Alexan- 
dra Adare  he  replied  that  he  didn't  recognize  the  name. 

"I  was  formerly  nursery  governess  to  your  daughter, 
Mrs.  Rossiter,"  I  explained.  "I'm  the  woman  who's 
refused  as  yet  to  marry  your  son,  Hugh." 

"Oh,  that  person,"  came  the  response,  uttered  wearily. 

"Yes,  sir;  that  person.  I  must  apologize  for  ringing 
you  up  so  late;  but  I  wanted  to  tell  you  that  Mrs.  Broken- 
shire  is  here  at  Providence  with  me." 

The  symptoms  of  distress  came  to  me  in  a  series  of 
choking  sounds  over  the  wire.  It  was  a  good  half -minute 
before  I  got  the  words : 

"What  does  that  mean?" 

"It  means  that  Mrs.  Brokenshire  is  perfectly  well  in 
physical  condition,  but  she's  tired  and  nervous  and  over- 
wrought." 

I  made  out  that  the  muffled  and  strangled  voice  said: 

"I'll  motor  up  to  Providence  at  once.  It's  now  half 
past  ten.  I  shall  be  there  between  one  and  two.  What 
hotel  shall  I  find  you  at?" 

289 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

"Don't  come,  sir,"  I  pleaded.  "I  had  to  tell  you  we 
were  in  Providence,  because  you  could  have  found  that 
out  by  asking  where  the  long-distance  call  had  come  from ; 
but  it's  most  important  to  Mrs.  Brokenshire  that  she 
should  have  a  few  days  alone." 

"I  shall  judge  of  that.  To  what  hotel  shall  I 
come?" 

"I  beg  and  implore  you,  sir,  not  to  come.  Please  be- 
lieve me  when  I  say  that  it  will  be  better  for  you  in  the  end. 
Try  to  trust  me.  Mrs.  Brokenshire  isn't  far  from  a  ner- 
vous breakdown;  but  if  I  can  have  her  to  myself  for  a  week 
or  two  I  believe  I  could  tide  her  over  it." 

Reproof  and  argument  followed  on  this,  till  at  last  he 
yielded,  with  the  words: 

"Where  are  you  going?" 

Fortunately,  I  had  thought  of  that. 

"To  some  quiet  place  in  Massachusetts.  When  we're 
settled  I  shall  let  you  know." 

He  suggested  a  hotel  at  Lenox  as  suitable  for  such  a 
sojourn. 

"She'd  rather  go  where  she  wouldn't  meet  people  whom 
she  knows.  The  minute  she  has  decided  I  shall  communi- 
cate with  you  again." 

"But  I  can  see  you  in  the  morning  before  you  leave?" 

The  accent  was  now  that  of  request.  The  overtone  in 
it  was  pitiful. 

"Oh,  don't  try  to,  sir.  She  wants  to  get  away  from 
every  one.  It  will  be  so  much  better  for  her  to  do  just  as 
she  likes.  She  had  got  to  a  point  where  she  had  to  escape 
from  everything  she  knew  and  cared  about ;  and  so  all  of 
a  sudden — only — only  to-day — she  decided  to  come  with 
me.  She  doesn't  need  a  trained  nurse,  because  she's 
perfectly  well.  All  she  wants  is  some  one  to  be  with  her — 

290 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

whom  she  knows  she  can  trust.  She  hasn't  even  taken 
Angelique.  She  simply  begs  to  be  alone." 

In  the  end  I  made  my  point,  but  only  after  genuine 
beseeching  on  his  part  and  much  repetition  on  mine. 
Having  said  good-night  to  him — he  actually  used  the 
words — I  called  up  Angelique,  in  order  to  bring  peace  to  a 
household  in  which  the  mistress's  desertion  would  create 
some  consternation. 

Angelique  and  I  might  have  been  called  friends.  The 
fact  that  I  spoke  French  comme  une  Fran$aise,  as  she  often 
flattered  me  by  saying,  was  a  bond  between  us,  and  we  had 
the  further  point  of  sympathy  that  we  were  both  devoted 
to  Mrs.  Brokenshire.  Besides  that,  there  is  something 
in  me — I  suppose  it  must  be  a  plebeian  streak — which 
enables  me  to  understand  servants  and  get  along  with 
them. 

I  gave  her  much  the  same  explanation  as  I  gave  to  Mr. 
Brokenshire,  though  somewhat  differently  put.  In  addi- 
tion I  asked  her  to  pack  such  selections  from  the  simpler 
examples  of  Mrs.  Brokenshire's  wardrobe  as  the  lady 
might  need  in  a  country  place,  and  keep  them  in  readiness 
to  send.  Angelique  having  expressed  her  relief  that  Mrs. 
Brokenshire  was  safe  at  a  known  address,  in  the  company 
of  a  responsible  attendant — a  relief  which,  so  she  said, 
would  be  shared  by  the  housekeeper,  the  chef,  and  the 
butler,  all  of  whom  had  spent  the  evening  in  painful  specu- 
lation— we  took  leave  of  each  other,  with  our  customary 
mutual  compliments. 

Though  I  was  so  tired  by  this  time  that  fainting  would 
have  been  a  solace,  I  called  for  a  Boston  paper  and  began 
studying  the  advertisements  of  country  hotels.  Having 
made  a  selection  of  these  I  consulted  the  manager  of  our 
present  place  of  refuge,  who  strongly  commended  one  of 

291 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

them.  Thither  I  sent  a  night-letter  commandeering  the 
best,  after  which,  with  no  more  than  strength  to  undress, 
I  lay  down  on  a  couch  in  Mrs.  Brokenshire's  room.  When 
I  knew  she  was  sleeping  I,  too,  slept  fitfully.  About  once 
in  an  hour  I  went  softly  to  her  bedside,  and  finding  her 
dozing,  if  not  sound  asleep,  I  went  softly  back  again. 

Between  four  and  five  we  had  a  little  scene.  As  I 
approached  her  bed  she  looked  up  and  said: 

"What  are  we  going  to  do  in  the  morning?" 

Afraid  to  tell  her  all  I  had  put  in  train,  I  gave  my  ideas 
in  the  form  of  suggestion. 

"No,  I  sha'n't  do  that,"  she  said,  quietly. 

She  lay  quite  still,  her  cheek  embossed  on  the  pillow, 
and  a  great  stray  curl  over  her  left  shoulder. 

"  Then  what  would  you  like  to  do?" 

"  I  should  like  to  go  straight  back." 

"To  begin  the  same  old  life  all  over  again?" 

"To  begin  to  see  him  all  over  again." 

"Do  you  think  that  after  last  night  you  can  begin  to  see 
him  in  the  same  old  way?" 

"I  must  see  him  in  some  way." 

"But  isn't  the  way  what  you've  still  to  discover?"  I 
resolved  on  a  bold  stroke.  "Wouldn't  part  of  your  object 
in  going  away  for  a  time  be  to  think  out  some  method  of 
reconciling  your  feeling  for  Mr.  Grainger  with — with 
your  self-respect?" 

"My  self-respect?"  She  looked  as  if  she  had  never 
heard  of  such  a  thing.  ' '  What's  that  got  to  do  with  it  ?" 

"Hasn't  it  got  everything  to  do  with  it?  You  can't 
live  without  it  forever." 

"Do  you  mean  that  I've  been  living  without  it  as 
it  is?" 

"Isn't  that  for  you  to  say  rather  than  for  me?" 
292 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

She  was  silent  for  a  minute,  after  which  she  said,  fret- 
fully: 

"I  don't  think  it's  very  nice  of  you  to  talk  to  me  like 
that.  You've  got  me  here  at  your  mercy,  when  I  might 
have  been — "  A  long,  bubbling  sigh,  like  the  aftermath 
of  tears,  laid  stress  on  the  joys  she  had  foregone.  "He'll 
never  forgive  me  now — never." 

"Wouldn't  it  be  better,  dear  Mrs.  Brokenshire,"  I 
asked,  "to  consider  whether  or  not  you  can  ever  forgive 
him?" 

She  raised  herself  on  her  elbow  and  looked  at  me. 
Seated  in  a  low  arm-chair  beside  her  bed,  in  an  old-rose- 
colored  kimono,  my  dark  hair  hanging  down  my  back,  I 
was  not  a  fascinating  object  of  study,  even  in  the  light  of 
one  small,  distant,  shaded  bedroom  lamp. 

"What  should  I  forgive  him  for? — for  loving  me?" 

"Yes,  for  loving  you — in  that  way." 

"He  loves  me — " 

'So  much  that  he  could  see  you  dishonored  and  dis- 
graced— and  shunned  by  decent  people  all  the  rest  of  your 
life — just  to  gratify  his  own  desires.  It  seems  to  me  you 
may  have  to  forgive  him  for  that." 

"He  asked  me  to  dp  only  what  I  would  have  done  will- 
ingly— if  it  hadn't  been  for  you." 

"But  he  asked  you.  The  responsibility  is  in  that. 
You  didn't  make  the  suggestion;  he  did." 

"He  didn't  make  it  till  I'd  let  him  see—" 

"Too  much.  Forgive  me  for  saying  it,  dear  Mrs. 
Brokenshire;  but  do  you  think  a  woman  should  ever  go  so 
far  to  meet  a  man  as  you  did?" 

"I  let  him  see  that  I  loved  him.  I  did  that  before  I 
married  Mr.  Brokenshire." 

"You  let  him  see  more  than  that  you  loved  him.    You 
29* 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

showed  him  that  you  didn't  know  how  to  live  without 
him." 

"But  since  I  didn't  know  how — " 

"Ah,  but  you  should  have  known.  No  woman  should 
be  so  dependent  on  a  man  as  that." 

She  fell  back  again  on  her  pillows. 

"It's  easy  to  see  you've  never  been  in  love." 

"I  have  been  in  love — and  am  still;  but  love  is  not  the 
most  important  thing  in  the  world — " 

"Then  you  differ  from  all  the  great  teachers.  They  say 
it  is." 

"If  they  do  they're  not  speaking  of  sexual  love." 

"What  are  they  speaking  of,  then?" 

"They're  speaking  of  another  kind  of  love,  with  which 
the  mere  sexual  has  nothing  to  do.  I'm  not  an  ascetic, 
and  I  know  the  sexual  has  its  place.  But  there's  a  love 
that's  as  much  bigger  than  that  as  the  sky  is  bigger  than 
lam." 

"Yes,  but  so  long  as  one  never  sees  it — " 

I  suppose  it  was  her  tone  of  feeble  rebellion  that  roused 
my  spirit  and  made  me  speak  in  a  way  which  I  should  not 
otherwise  have  allowed  myself. 

"You  do  see  it,  darling  Mrs.  Brokenshire,"  I  declared, 
more  sweetly  than  I  felt.  "I'm  showing  it  to  you. ' '  I  rose 
and  stood  over  her.  ' '  What  do  you  suppose  I'm  prompted 
by  but  love?  What  urges  me  to  stand  by  Mr.  Brokenshire 
but  love?  What  made  me  step  in  between  you  and  Mr. 
Grainger  and  save  him,  as  well  as  you,  but  love?  Love 
isn't  emotion  that  leaves  you  weak;  it's  action  that  makes 
you  strong.  It  has  to  be  action,  and  it  has  to  be  right 
action.  There's  no  love  separable  from  right;  and  until 
you  grasp  that  fact  you'll  always  be  unhappy.  I'm  a 
mere  rag  in  my  own  person.  I've  no  more  character 

294 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

than  a  hen.  But  because  I've  got  a  wee  little  hold 
on  right — " 

She  broke  in,  peevishly,  as  she  turned  away: 

"  I  do  wish  you'd  let  me  go  to  sleep." 

I  got  down  from  my  high  horse  and  went  back,  humbly, 
to  my  couch.  Scarcely,  however,  had  I  lain  down,  when 
the  voice  came  again,  in  childish  complaint: 

"I  think  you  might  have  kissed  me." 

I  had  never  kissed  her  in  my  life,  nor  had  she  ever  shown 
any  sign  of  permitting  me  this  liberty.  Timidly  I  went 
back  to  the  bed;  timidly  I  bent  over  it.  But  I  was  not 
prepared  for  the  sudden  intense  clinging  with  which  she 
threw  her  arms  round  my  neck  and  drew  my  face  down 
to  hers. 

20 


CHAPTER  XIX 

IN  the  morning  Mrs.  Brokenshire  was  difficult  again, 
but  I  got  her  into  a  neat  little  country  inn  in 
Massachusetts  by  the  middle  of  the  afternoon.  I  had 
to  be  like  a  jailer  dragging  along  a  prisoner,  but  that 
could  not  be  helped. 

On  leaving  Providence  she  insisted  on  spending  a  few 
days  in  Boston,  where,  so  she  said,  she  had  friends  whom 
she  wished  to  see.  Knowing  that  Stacy  Grainger  would 
be  at  one  of  the  few  hotels  of  which  we  had  the  choice, 
I  couldn't  risk  a  meeting.  Her  predominating  shame,  a 
shame  she  had  no  hesitation  in  confessing,  was  for  having 
failed  him.  He  would  never  forgive  her,  she  moaned;  he 
wouldn't  love  her  any  more.  Not  to  be  loved  by  him,  not 
to  be  forgiven,  was  like  death.  All  she  demanded  during 
the  early  hours  of  that  day  was  to  find  him,  wherever  he 
had  gone,  and  fling  herself  at  his  feet. 

Because  I  didn't  allow  her  to  remain  in  Boston  we  had 
what  was  almost  a  quarrel,  as  we  jolted  over  the  cobble- 
stones from  the  southern  station  to  the  northern.  She  was 
now  an  outraged  queen  and  now  a  fiery  little  ^ermagant. 
Sparing  me  neither  tears  nor  reproaches,  neither  scoldings 
nor  denunciations,  she  net ertheless  followed  me  obedi- 
ently. Sitting  opposite  me  in  the  parlor-car,  ignoring  the 
papers  and  fashion  magazines  I  spread  beneath  her  eyes, 
she  lifted  on  me  the  piteous  face  of  an  angel  whom  I  had 

296 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

beaten  and  trampled  and  enslaved.  For  this  kind  of 
sacrilege  I  had  ceased,  however,  to  be  contrite.  I  was  so 
tired,  and  had  grown  so  grim,  that  I  could  have  led  her 
along  in  handcuffs. 

But  once  out  in  the  fresh,  green,  northern  country  the 
joy  of  a  budding  and  blossoming  world  stole  into  us  in  spite 
of  all  our  cares.  We  couldn't  help  getting  out  of  our  own 
little  round  of  thought  when  we  saw  fields  that  were  car- 
pets of  green  velvet,  or  copses  of  hazelnut  and  alder  coming 
into  leaf,  or  a  farmer  sowing  the  plowed  earth  with  the 
swing  and  the  stride  of  the  Semeur.  We  couldn't  help 
seeing  wider  and  farther  and  more  hopefully  when  the  sky 
was  an  arch  of  silvery  blue  overhead,  and  white  clouds 
drifted  across  it,  and  the  north  into  which  we  were  travel- 
ing began  to  fling  up  masses  of  rolling  hills. 

She  caught  me  by  the  arm. 

"  Oh,  do  look  at  the  lambs !    The  darlings !' 

There  they  were,  three  or  four  helpless  creatures,  shiver- 
ing in  the  sharp  May  wind  and  apparently  struck  by  the 
futility  of  a  life  which  would  end  in  nothing  but  making 
chops.  The  ewes  watched  them  maternally,  or  stood 
patiently  to  be  tugged  by  the  full  woolly  breasts.  After 
that  we  kept  our  eyes  open  for  other  living  things:  for 
horses  and  cows  and  calves,  for  Corots  and  Constables — 
with  a  difference! — on  the  uplands  of  farms  or  in  village 
highways.  Once  when  a  foal  galloped  madly  away  from 
the  train,  kicking  up  its  slender  hind  legs,  my  companion 
actually  laughed. 

When  we  got  out  at  the  station  a  robin  was  singing,  the 
first  bird  we  had  heard  that  year.  The  note  was  so  full  and 
pure  and  Eden-like  that  it  caught  one's  breath.  It  went 
with  the  bronze-green  of  maples  and  elms,  with  the  golden 
westering  sunshine,  and  with  the  air  that  was  like  the  dis- 

297 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

tillation  of  air  and  yet  had  a  sharp  northern  tang  in  it. 
Driving  in  the  motor  of  the  inn,  through  the  main  street 
of  the  town,  we  saw  that  most  of  the  white  houses  had  a 
roomy  Colonial  dignity,  and  that  orchards  of  apple,  cherry, 
and  plum,  with  acres  of  small  fruit,  surrounded  them  all. 
Having  learned  on  the  train  that  jam  was  the  staple  of  the 
little  town's  prosperity,  we  could  see  jam  everywhere. 
Jam  was  in  the  cherry-trees  covered  with  dainty  white 
blossoms,  in  the  plum-trees  showing  but  a  flower  or  two, 
and  in  the  apple-trees  scarcely  in  bud.  Jam  was  in  the 
long  straight  lines  which  we  were  told  represented  straw- 
berries, and  in  the  shrubberies  of  currant.  Jam  was  along 
the  roadsides  where  the  raspberry  was  clothing  its  sprawl- 
ing bines  with  leaves,  and  wherever  the  blueberry  glad- 
dened the  waste  places  with  its  millions  of  modest  bells. 
Jam  is  a  toothsome,  homey  thing  to  which  no  woman  with 
a  housekeeping  heart  can  be  insensible.  The  thought  of  it 
did  something  to  bring  Mrs.  Brokenshire's  thoughts  back 
to  the  simple  natural  ways  she  had  forsworn,  even  before 
reaching  the  hotel. 

The  hotel  was  no  more  than  a  farm-house  that  had 
expanded  itself  half  a  dozen  times.  We  traversed  all  sorts 
of  narrow  halls  and  climbed  all  sorts  of  narrow  stair- 
cases, till  at  last  we  emerged  on  a  corner  suite,  where  the 
view  led  us  straight  to  the  balcony. 

Not  that  it  was  an  extraordinary  view;  it  was  only  a 
peaceful  and  a  noble  one.  An  undulating  country  held  in 
its  folds  a  scattering  of  lakes,  working  up  to  the  lines  of  the 
southern  New  Hampshire  hills  which  closed  the  horizon 
to  the  north.  Green  was,  of  course,  the  note  of  the  land- 
scape, melting  into  mauve  in  the  mountains  and  saffron  in 
the  sky.  Spacing  out  the  perspective  a  mauve  mist  rose 
between  the  ridges,  and  a  mauve  light  rested  on  the  three 

298 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

wrhite  steeples  of  the  town.  The  town  was  perhaps  two 
hundred  feet  below  us  and  a  mile  away,  nestling  in  a 
feathery  bower  of  verdure. 

When  I  joined  Mrs.  Brokenshire  she  was  grasping  the 
balcony  rail,  emitting  little  "Ohs!"  and  "Ahs!"  of  ecstasy. 
She  drew  long  breaths,  like  a  thirsty  person  drinking.  She 
listened  to  the  calling  and  answering  of  birds  with  face 
illumined  and  upturned.  It  was  a  bath  of  the  spirit  to  us 
both.  It  was  cleansing  and  healing;  it  was  soothing  and 
restful  and  corrective,  setting  what  was  sane  within  us 
free. 

Of  all  this  I  need  say  little  beyond  mentioning  the  fact 
that  Mrs.  Brokenshire,  in  spite  of  herself,  entered  into  a 
period  in  which  her  taut  nerves  relaxed  and  her  over- 
strained emotions  became  rested.  It  was  a  kind  of  truce 
of  God  to  her.  She  had  struggled  and  suffered  so  much 
that  she  was  content  for  a  time  to  lie  still  in  the  everlasting 
arms  and  be  rocked  and  comforted.  We  had  the  simplest 
of  rooms;  we  ate  the  simplest  of  food ;  we  led  the  simplest 
of  lives.  By  day  we  read  and  walked  and  talked  a  little 
and  thought  much;  at  night  we  slept  soundly.  Our  fel- 
low-guests were  people  who  did  the  same,  varying  the 
processes  with  golf  and  moving  pictures.  For  the  most 
part  they  were  tired  people  from  the  neighboring  towns, 
seeking  like  ourselves  a  few  days'  respite  from  their  bur- 
dens. Though  they  came  to  know  who  Mrs.  Brokenshire 
was,  they  respected  her  privacy,  never  doing  worse  than 
staring  after  her  when  she  entered  the  dining-room  or 
walked  on  the  lawns  or  verandas.  I  had  come  to  love  her 
so  much  that  it  was  a  joy  to  me  to  witness  the  revival  of 
her  spirit,  and  I  looked  forward  to  seeing  her  restored,  not 
too  reluctantly,  to  her  husband. 

With  him  I  had,  of  course,  some  correspondence.  It 

299 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

was  an  odd  correspondence,  in  which  I  made  my  custom- 
ary gaffe.  On  our  first  evening  at  the  inn  I  wrote  to  him  in 
fulfilment  of  my  promise,  beginning,  "Dear  Mr.  Broken- 
shire,"  as  if  I  was  writing  to  an  equal.  The  acknowledg- 
ment came  back:  "Miss  Alexandra  Adare:  Dear  Ma- 
dam, ' '  putting  me  back  in  my  place.  Accepting  the  rebuff, 
I  adopted  the  style  in  sending  him  my  daily  bulletins. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  my  time  was  largely  passed  in  writ- 
ing, for  I  had  explanations  to  make  to  so  many.  My 
acquaintance  with  Mrs.  Brokenshire  having  been  a  secret 
one,  I  was  obliged  to  confess  it  to  Hugh  and  Mrs.  Rossiter, 
and  even  to  Angelique.  I  had,  in  a  measure,  to  apologize 
for  it,  too,  setting  down  Mrs.  Brokenshire's  selection  of 
my  company  to  an  invalid's  eccentricity. 

So  we  got  through  May  and  into  June,  my  reports  to 
Mr.  Brokenshire  being  each  one  better  than  the  last. 
My  patient  never  wrote  to  him  herself,  nor  to  any  one. 
We  had,  in  fact,  been  a  day  or  two  at  the  inn  before  she 
said: 

"  I  wonder  what  Mr.  Brokenshire  is  thinking?" 

It  was  for  me  to  tell  her  then  that  from  the  beginning  I 
had  kept  him  informed  as  to  where  she  was,  and  that  he 
knew  I  was  with  her.  For  a  minute  or  two  she  stiffened 
into  the  grande  dame,  as  she  occasionally  did. 

"You'll  be  good  enough  in  future  not  to  do  such  things 
without  consulting  me,"  she  said,  with  dignity. 

That  passed,  and  when  I  read  to  her,  as  I  always  did, 
the  occasional  notes  with  which  her  husband  honored  me, 
she  listened  without  comment.  It  must  have  been  the 
harder  to  do  that  since  the  lover's  pleading  ardor  could  be 
detected  beneath  all  the  cold  formality  in  which  he  couched 
his  communications. 

It  was  this  ardor,  as  well  as  something  else,  that  began 

300 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

in  the  end  to  make  me  uneasy.  The  something  else  was 
that  Mrs.  Brokenshire  was  writing  letters  on  her  own 
account.  Coming  in  one  day  from  a  solitary  walk,  I 
found  her  posting  one  in  the  hall  of  the  hotel.  A  few  days 
later  one  for  her  was  handed  to  me  at  the  office,  with 
several  of  my  own.  Recognizing  Stacy  Grainger's  writing, 
I  put  it  back  with  the  words: 

"Mrs.  Brokenshire  will  come  for  her  letters  herself." 

From  that  time  onward  she  was  often  at  her  desk,  and  I 
knew  when  she  got  her  replies  by  the  feverishness  of  her 
manner.  The  truce  of  God  being  past,  the  battle  was  now 
on  again. 

The  first  sign  of  it  given  to  me  was  on  a  day  when  Mr. 
Brokenshire  wrote  in  terms  more  definite  than  he  had  used 
hitherto.  I  read  the  letter  aloud  to  her,  as  usual.  He 
had  been  patient,  he  said,  and  considerate,  which  had  to  be 
admitted.  Now  he  could  deny  himself  no  longer.  As  it 
was  plain  that  his  wife  was  better,  he  should  come  to 
her.  He  named  the  2oth  as  the  day  on  which  he  should 
appear. 

"No,  no,"  she  cried,  excitedly.  "Not  till  after  the 
twenty-third." 

"But  why  the  twenty-third?"  I  asked,  innocently. 

"Because  I  say  so.  You'll  see."  Then  fearing,  ap- 
parently, that  she  had  betrayed  something  she  ought  to 
have  concealed,  she  colored  and  added,  lamely,  "It  will 
give  me  a  little  more  time." 

I  said  nothing,  but  I  pondered  much.  The  23d  was 
no  date  at  all  that  had  anything  to  do  with  us.  If  it 
had  significance  it  was  in  plans  as  to  which  she  had  not 
taken  me  into  her  confidence. 

So,  too,  when  I  heard  her  making  inquiries  of  the  maid 
who  did  the  rooms  as  to  the  location  of  the  Baptist  church. 

301 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

"What  on  earth  does  she  want  to  know  that  for?"  was  the 
question  I  not  unnaturally  asked  myself.  That  she,  who 
never  went  to  church  at  all,  except  as  an  occasional  act 
of  high  ceremonial  for  which  she  took  great  credit  to  her 
soul,  was  now  concerned  with  the  doctrine  of  baptism  by 
immersion  I  did  not  believe.  But  I  hunted  up  the  sacred 
edifice  myself,  finding  it  to  be  situated  on  the  edge  of  a 
daisied  mead,  slightly  out  of  the  town,  on  a  road  that  might 
be  described  as  lonely  and  remote.  I  came  to  the  con- 
clusion that  if  any  one  wanted  to  carry  off  in  an  automobile 
a  lady  picking  flowers — a  sort  of  enlfoement  de  Proserpine 
— this  would  be  as  good  a  place  as  any.  How  the  Pluto  of 
our  drama  could  have  come  to  select  it,  Heaven  only  knew. 

But  I  did  as  I  was  bid,  and  wrote  to  Mr.  Brokenshire 
that  once  the  23d  was  passed  he  would  be  free  to  come. 
After  that  I  watched,  wondering  whether  or  not  I  should 
have  the  heart  or  the  nerve  to  frustrate  love  a  second 
time,  even  if  I  got  the  chance. 

I  didn't  get  the  chance  precisely,  but  on  the  2  ad  of 
June  I  received  a  mysterious  note.  It  was  typewritten 
and  had  neither  date  nor  address  nor  signature.  Its 
message  was  simple: 

"If  Miss  Adare  will  be  at  the  post-office  at  four  o'clock 
this  afternoon  she  will  greatly  oblige  the  writer  of  these 
lines  and  perhaps  benefit  a  person  who  is  dear  to  her." 

The  post-office  being  a  tolerably  safe  place  in  case  of 
felonious  attack,  I  was  on  the  spot  at  five  minutes  before 
the  hour.  In  that  particular  town  it  occupied  a  corner  of  a 
brick  building  which  also  gave  shelter  to  the  bank  and  a 
milliner's  establishment.  As  the  village  hotel  was  oppo- 
site, I  advertised  my  arrival  by  studying  a  display  of 
hats  which  warranted  the  attention  before  going  inside  to 
invest  in  stamps.  As  I  was  the  only  applicant  for  this 

302 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

necessary  of  life,  the  swarthy,  undersized  young  man  who 
served  me  made  kindly  efforts  at  entertainment  while 
"delivering  the  goods,"  as  he  expressed  it. 

"English,  ain't  you?" 

I  said,  as  usual,  that  I  was  a  Canadian. 

He  smiled  at  his  own  perspicacity. 

"Got  your  number,  didn't  I?  All  you  Canucks  have 
the  same  queer  way  o'  talkin'.  Two  or  three  in  the  jam- 
factory  here — only  they're  French." 

I  knew  some  one  had  entered  behind  me,  and,  turning 
away  from  the  wicket,  I  found  the  person  I  had  expected. 
Mr.  Stacy  Grainger,  clad  jauntily  in  a  gray  spring  suit, 
lifted  a  soft  felt  hat. 

He  went  to  his  point  without  introductory  greeting. 

"It's  good  of  you  to  have  come.  Perhaps  we  could  talk 
better  if  we  walked  up  the  street.  There's  no  one  to  know 
us  or  to  make  it  awkward  for  you." 

Walking  up  the  street  he  made  his  errand  clear  to  me. 
I  had  partly  guessed  it  before  he  said  a  word.  I  had 
guessed  it  from  his  pallor,  from  something  indefinably 
humbled  in  the  way  he  bore  himself,  and  from  the  worried 
light  in  his  romantic  eyes.  Being  so  much  taller  than  I,  he 
had  to  stoop  toward  me  as  he  talked. 

He  knew,  he  said,  what  had  happened  on  the  train. 
Some  of  it  he  had  wrung  from  his  secretary,  Strangways, 
and  the  rest  had  been  written  him  by  Mrs.  Brokenshire. 
He  had  been  so  furious  at  first  that  he  might  have  been 
called  insane.  In  order  to  give  himself  the  pleasure  of 
kicking  Strangways  out  he  had  refused  to  accept  his 
resignation,  and  had  I  not  been  a  woman  he  would  have 
sought  revenge  on  me.  He  had  been  the  more  frantic 
because  until  getting  his  first  note  from  Mrs.  Brokenshire 
he  hadn't  known  where  she  was.  To  have  the  person 

303 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

dearest  to  him  in  the  world  swept  off  the  face  of  the  earth 
after  she  was  actually  under  his  protection  was  enough  to 
drive  a  man  mad. 

Having  acquiesced  in  this,  I  considered  it  no  harm  to  add 
that  if  I  had  known  the  business  on  which  I  was  setting 
out  I  should  have  hardly  dared  that  day  to  take  the  train 
for  Boston.  Once  on  it,  however,  and  in  speech  with 
Mrs.  Brokenshire,  it  had  seemed  that  there  was  no  other 
course  before  me. 

"Quite  so,"  he  agreed,  somewhat  to  my  surprise.  "I 
see  that  now.  He's  not  altogether  an  ass,  that  fellow 
Strangways.  I've  kept  him  with  me,  and  little  by 
little — "  He  broke  off  abruptly  to  say:  "And  now  the 
shoe's  on  the  other  foot.  That's  what  I  wanted  to  tell 
you." 

I  walked  on  a  few  paces  before  getting  the  force  of  this 
figure  of  speech. 

"You  mean  that  Mrs.  Brokenshire — " 

"Quite  so.  I  see  you  get  what  I'd  like  you  to  know." 
He  went  on,  brokenly:  "It  isn't  that  I  don't  want  it  my- 
self as  much  as  ever.  I  only  see,  as  I  didn't  see  before, 
what  it  would  mean  to  her.  If  I  were  to  take  her  at  her 
word — as  I  must,  of  course,  if  she  insists  on  it — " 

I  had  to  think  hard  while  we  continued  to  walk  on  be- 
neath the  leafing  elms,  and  the  village  people  watched  us 
two  as  city  folks. 

"It's  for  to-morrow,  isn't  it?"  I  asked  at  last. 

He  nodded. 

"How  did  you  know  that?" 

"Near  the  Baptist  church?" 

"How  the  deuce  do  you  know?  I  motored  up  here  last 
week  to  spy  out  the  land.  That  seemed  to  me  the  most 
practicable  spot,  where  we  should  be  least  observed — " 

3°4 


THE   HIGH    HEART 

We  were  still  walking  on  when  I  said,  without  quite 
knowing  why  I  did  so : 

"Why  shouldn't  you  go  away  at  once  and  leave  it  all 
tome?" 

* '  Leave  it  all  to  you  ?    And  what  would  you  do  ? " 

"I  don't  know.  I  should  have  to  think.  I  could  do — 
something." 

"But  suppose  she's  counting  on  me  to  come?" 

"Then  you  would  have  to  fail  her." 

"I  couldn't." 

"Not  even  if  it  was  for  her  good?" 

He  shook  his  head. 

"Not  even  if  it  was  for  her  good.  No  one  who  calls 
himself  a  gentleman — " 

I  couldn't  help  flinging  him  a  scornful  smile. 

"Isn't  it  too  late  to  think  in  terms  like  that?  We've 
come  to  a  place  where  such  words  don't  apply.  The  best 
we  can  do  is  to  get  out  of  a  difficult  situation  as  wisely  as 
possible,  and  if  you'd  just  go  away  and  leave  it  to  me — " 

"She'd  never  forgive  me.    That's  what  I'd  be  afraid  of." 

"There's  nothing  to  be  afraid  of  in  doing  right,"  I  de- 
clared, a  little  sententiously.  "You'll  do  right  in  going 
away.  The  rest  will  take  care  of  itself." 

We  came  to  the  edge  of  the  town,  where  there  was  a  gate 
leading  into  a  pasture.  Over  this  gate  we  leaned  and 
looked  down  on  a  valley  of  orchards  and  farms.  He  was 
sufficiently  at  ease  to  take  out  a  cigarette  and  ask  my  per- 
mission to  smoke. 

"What  would  you  say  of  a  man  who  treated  you  like 
that?"  he  asked,  presently. 

"It  wouldn't  matter  what  I  said  at  first,  so  long  as  I 
lived  to  thank  him.  That's  what  she'd  do,  and  she'd 
do  it  soon." 

305 


"And  in  the  mean  time?" 

"I  don't  see  that  you  need  think  of  that.  If  you  do 
right—" 

He  groaned  aloud. 

"Oh,  right  be  hanged!" 

"Yes,  there  you  go.  But  so  long  as  right  is  hanged 
wrong  will  have  it  all  its  own  way  and  you'll  both  get  into 
trouble.  Do  right  now — " 

"And  leave  her  in  the  lurch?" 

"You  wouldn't  be  leaving  her  in  the  lurch,  because 
you'd  be  leaving  her  with  me.  I  know  her  and  can  take 
care  of  her.  If  you  were  just  failing  her  and  nothing 
else — that  would  be  another  thing.  But  I'm  here.  If 
you'll  only  do  what's  so  obviously  right,  Mr.  Grainger, 
you  can  trust  me  with  the  rest." 

I  said  this  firmly  and  with  an  air  of  competence,  though, 
as  a  matter  of  fact,  I  had  no  idea  of  what  I  should  have  to 
do.  What  I  wanted  first  was  to  get  rid  of  him.  Once 
alone  with  her,  I  knew  I  should  get  some  kind  of  inspira- 
tion. 

He  diverted  the  argument  to  himself — he  wanted  her  so 
much,  he  would  have  to  suffer  so  cruelly. 

"There's  no  question  as  to  your  suffering,"  I  said. 
"You'll  both  have  to  suffer.  That  can  be  taken  for 
granted.  We're  only  thinking  of  the  way  in  which  you'll 
suffer  least." 

"That's  true,"  he  admitted,  but  slowly  and  re- 
luctantly. 

"I'm  not  a  terribly  rigorous  moralist,"  I  went  on. 
"I've  a  lot  of  sympathy  with  Paolo  and  Francesca  and 
with  Pelleas  and  Melisande.  But  you  can  see  for  yourself 
that  all  such  instances  end  unhappily,  and  when  it's 
happiness  you're  primarily  in  search  of — " 

306 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

"Hers— especially,"  he  interposed,  with  the  same 
deliberation  and  some  of  the  same  unwillingness. 

"Well,  then,  isn't  your  course  clear?  She'll  never 
be  happy  with  you  if  she  kills  the  man  she  runs  away 
from—" 

He  withdrew  his  cigarette  and  looked  at  me,  wonder- 
ingly. 

' '  Kills  him  ?     What  in  thunder  do  you  mean  ? ' ' 

I  explained  my  convictions.  Howard  Brokenshire 
wouldn't  survive  his  wife's  desertion  for  a  month;  he 
might  not  survive  it  for  a  day.  He  was  a  doomed  man, 
even  if  his  wife  did  not  desert  him  at  all.  He,  Stacy 
Grainger,  was  young.  Mrs.  Brokenshire  was  young. 
Wouldn't  it  be  better  for  them  both  to  wait  on  life — and 
on  the  other  possibilities  that  I  didn't  care  to  name  more 
explicitly? 

So  he  wrestled  with  himself,  and  incidentally  with  me, 
turning  back  at  last  toward  the  village  inn — and  his 
motor.  While  shaking  my  hand  to  say  good-by  he  threw 
off,  jerkily: 

"I  suppose  you  know  my  secretary,  Strangways,  wants 
to  marry  you?" 

My  heart  seemed  to  stop  beating. 

"He's — he's  never  said  so  to  me,"  I  managed  to  return, 
but  more  weakly  than  I  could  have  wished. 

"Well,  he  will.  He's  all  right.  He's  not  a  fool.  I'm 
taking  him  with  me  into  some  big  things;  so  that  if  it's 
the  money  you're  in  doubt  about — " 

I  had  recovered  myself  enough  to  say: 

"Oh  no;  not  at  all.  But  if  you're  in  his  confidence  I 
beg  you  to  ask  him  to  think  no  more  about  it.  I'm  en- 
gaged— or  practically  engaged — I  may  say  that  I'm  en- 
gaged— to  Hugh  Brokenshire." 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

" I  see.    Then  you're  making  a  mistake." 

I  was  moving  away  from  him  by  this  time  so  that  I  gave 
him  a  little  smile. 

"If  so,  the  circumstances  are  such  that — that  I  must  go 
On  making  it." 

"For  God's  sake  don't!"  he  called  after  me. 

"Oh,  but  I  must,"  I  returned,  and  so  we  went  our  ways. 

On  going  back  to  our  rooms  I  found  poor,  dear  little 
Mrs.  Brokenshire  packing  a  small  straw  suit-case.  She 
had  selected  it  as  the  only  thing  she  could  carry  in  her 
hand  to  the  place  of  the  enlevement.  She  was  not  a 
packer;  she  was  not  an  adept  in  secrecy.  •  As  I  entered 
her  room  she  looked  at  me  with  the  pleading,  guilty  eyes 
of  a  child  detected  in  the  act  of  stealing  sweets,  and  con- 
fessing before  he  is  accused. 

I  saw  nothing,  of  course.  I  saw  nothing  that  night.  I 
saw  nothing  the  next  day.  Each  one  of  her  helpless,  un- 
skilful moves  was  so  plain  to  me  that  I  could  have  wept; 
but  I  was  turning  over  in  my  mind  what  I  could  do  to  let 
her  know  she  was  deceived.  I  was  reproaching  myself, 
too,  for  being  so  treacherous  a  confidante.  All  the  great 
love-heroines  had  an  attendant  like  me,  who  bewailed 
and  lamented  the  steps  their  mistresses  were  taking,  and 
yet  lent  a  hand.  Here  I  was,  the  nurse  to  this  Juliet,  the 
Brangaene  to  this  Isolde,  but  acting  as  a  counter-agent  to 
all  romantic  schemes.  I  cannot  say  I  admired  myself; 
but  what  was  I  to  do? 

To  make  a  long  story  short  I  decided  to  do  nothing. 
You  may  scorn  me,  oh,  reader,  for  that;  but  I  came  to  a 
place  where  I  saw  it  would  be  vain  to  interfere.  Even  a 
child  must  sometimes  be  left  to  fight  its  own  battles  and 
stand  face  to  face  with  its  own  fate;  and  how  much  more  a 
married  woman!  It  became  the  more  evident  to  me  that 

308 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

this  was  what  I  could  best  do  for  Mrs.  Brokenshire  in  pro- 
portion as  I  watched  the  leaden  hands  and  feet  with  which 
she  carried  out  her  tasks  and  inferred  a  leaden  heart.  A 
leaden  heart  is  bad  enough,  but  a  leaden  heart  offering 
itself  in  vain — what  lesson  could  go  home  with  more  effect? 

During  the  forenoon  of  the  23d  each  little  incident 
cut  me  to  the  quick.  It  was  so  naive,  so  useless.  The 
poor  darling  thought  she  was  outwitting  me.  As  if  she 
was  stealing  it  she  stowed  away  her  jewelry,  and  when 
she  could  no  longer  hide  the  suit-case  she  murmured  some- 
thing about  articles  to  be  cleaned  at  the  village  cleaner's. 
I  took  this  with  a  feeble  joke  as  to  the  need  of  economy, 
and  when  she  thought  she  would  carry  down  the  things 
herself  I  commended  the  impulse  toward  exercise.  I  knew 
she  wouldn't  drive,  because  she  didn't  want  a  witness  to 
her  acts.  As  far  as  I  could  guess  the  hour  at  which  Pluto 
would  carry  off  Proserpine,  it  would  be  at  five  o'clock. 

And  indeed  about  half  past  three  I  observed  unusual 
signs  of  agitation.  Her  door  was  kept  closed,  and  from 
behind  it  came  sounds  of  a  final  opening  and  closing  of 
cupboards  and  drawers,  after  which  she  emerged,  wearing 
a  dark-blue  walking-suit  and  a  hat  of  the  canotibre  style, 
with  a  white  quill  feather  at  one  side.  I  still  made  no 
comment,  not  even  when  the  wan,  wee,  touching  figure  was 
ready  to  set  forth. 

If  her  first  steps  were  artless  the  last  was  more  artless 
still.  Instead  of  going  off  casually,  with  an  implied  inten- 
tion to  come  back,  she  took  leave  of  me  with  tears  and 
protestations  of  affection.  She  had  been  harsh  with  me, 
she  confessed,  and  seemingly  indifferent  to  my  tender 
care,  but  one  day  she  might  have  a  chance  to  show  me  how 
genuine  was  her  gratitude.  In  this,  too,  I  saw  no  more 
than  the  commonplace,  and  a  little  after  four  she  tripped 

3«>9 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

down  the  avenue,  looking,  with  her  suit-case,  like  a  school- 
girl. 

I  allowed  her  just  such  a  handicap  as  her  speed  and  mine 
would  have  warranted.  Even  then  I  made  no  attempt  to 
overtake  her.  Having  previously  got  what  is  called  the 
lay  of  the  land,  I  knew  how  I  could  come  to  her  assistance 
by  taking  a  short  cut.  I  had  hardened  my  heart  by  this 
time,  and  whatever  qualms  I  had  felt  before,  I  was  resolved 
now  to  spare  her  no  drop  of  the  wormwood  that  would  be 
for  her  good. 

I  cannot  describe  our  respective  routes  without  append- 
ing a  map,  which  would  scarcely  be  worth  while.  It  will 
be  enough  if  I  say  that  she  went  round  the  arc  of  a  bow 
and  I  cut  across  by  the  string.  I  came  thus  to  a  slight 
eminence,  selected  in  advance,  whence  I  could  watch  her 
descent  of  the  hill  by  which  the  lower  Main  Street  trails 
off  into  the  country.  I  could  follow  her,  too,  when  she 
deflected  into  a  small  cross -thoroughfare  bearing  the 
scented  name  of  Clover  Lane,  in  which  there  were  no 
houses;  and  I  should  still  be  able  to  trace  her  course  when 
she  emerged  on  the  quiet  country  road  that  would  take  her 
to  her  trysting-place.  I  had  no  intention  to  step  in  till  I 
could  do  it  at  some  spot  on  her  homeward  way,  and  thus 
spare  her  needless  humiliation. 

In  Clover  Lane  she  was  within  a  few  hundred  yards  of 
her  destination.  She  had  only  to  turn  a  corner  and  she 
would  be  in  sight  of  the  flowery  mead  whence  she  was  to 
be  carried  off.  It  was  a  pretty  lane,  grass-grown  and 
overhung  with  lilacs  in  full  bloom,  such  as  you  would 
find  on  the  edge  of  any  New  England  town.  The  lilacs 
shut  her  in  from  my  view  for  a  good  part  of  the  time,  but 
not  so  constantly  that  I  couldn't  be  a  witness  to  her 
soul's  tragedy. 

310 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

Her  soul's  tragedy  came  as  a  surprise  to  me.  Closely  as 
I  had  lived  with  her,  I  was  unprepared  for  any  such  event. 
My  first  hint  of  it  was  when  her  pace  through  the  lane  be- 
gan to  slacken,  till  at  last  she  stopped.  That  she  didn't 
stop  because  she  was  tired  I  could  judge  by  the  fact  that, 
though  she  stood  stock-still,  she  held  the  light  suit-case  in 
her  hand.  I  couldn't  see  her  face,  because  I  stood  under  a 
great  elm,  some  five  hundred  yards  away. 

Having  paused  and  reflected  for  the  space  of  three  or 
four  minutes,  she  went  on  again,  but  she  went  on  more 
slowly.  Her  light,  tripping  gait  had  become  a  dragging 
of  the  feet,  while  I  divined  that  she  was  still  pondering. 
As  it  was  nearly  five  o'clock,  she  couldn't  be  afraid  of 
being  before  her  time. 

But  she  stopped  again,  setting  the  suit-case  down  in  the 
middle  of  the  road.  She  turned  then  and  looked  back 
over  the  way  by  which  she  had  come,  as  if  regretting  it. 
Seeing  her  open  her  small  hand-bag,  take  out  a  handker- 
chief, and  put  it  to  her  lips,  I  was  sure  she  was  repressing 
one  of  her  baby-like  sobs.  My  heart  yearned  over  her, 
but  I  could  only  watch  her  breathlessly. 

She  went  on  again — twenty  paces,  perhaps.  Here  she 
seemed  to  find  a  seat  on  a  roadside  boulder,  for  she  sat 
down  on  it,  her  back  being  toward  me  and  her  figure  al- 
most concealed  by  the  wayside  growth.  I  could  only 
wonder  at  what  was  passing  in  her  mind.  The  whole 
period,  of  about  ten  minutes'  duration,  is  filled  in  my 
memory  with  mellow  afternoon  light  and  perfumed  air 
and  the  evening  song  of  birds.  When  the  village  clock 
struck  five  she  bounded  up  with  a  start. 

Again  she  took  what  might  have  been  twenty  paces, 
and  again  she  came  to  a  halt.  Dropping  the  suit-case  once 
more,  she  clasped  her  hands  as  if  she  was  praying.  As,  to 

21  311 


THE   HIGH    HEART 

the  best  of  my  knowledge,  her  prayers  were  confined  to  a 
hasty  evening  and  morning  ritual  in  which  there  was 
nothing  more  than  a  pious,  meaningless  habit,  I  could 
surmise  her  present  extremity.  Stacy  Grainger  was  like 
a  god  to  her.  If  she  renounced  him  now  it  would  be  an  act 
of  heroism  of  which  I  could  hardly  believe  her  capable. 

But,  apparently,  she  made  up  her  mind  that  she  couldn't 
renounce  him.  If  there  was  an  answer  to  her  prayer  it  was 
one  that  prompted  her  to  snatch  up  her  burden  again  and 
hurry,  with  a  kind  of  skimming  motion,  right  to  the  end  of 
the  lane.  It  was  to  the  end  of  the  lane,  but  not  to  the 
turning  into  the  roadway.  Once  in  the  roadway  she 
would  see — or  she  thought  she  would  see — Stacy  Grainger 
and  his  automobile,  and  her  fate  would  be  sealed. 

She  had  still  a  chance  before  her — and  from  that  rutted 
sandy  juncture,  with  wild  roses  and  wild  raspberries  in  the 
hedgerows  on  each  side,  she  reeled  back  as  if  she  had  been 
struck.  I  can  only  think  of  a  person  blinded  by  a  flash 
of  ligthning  who  would  recoil  in  just  that  way. 

For  a  few  minutes  she  was  hidden  from  my  view  behind 
the  lilacs.  When  I  caught  sight  of  her  again  she  was  run- 
ning like  a  terrified  bird  back  through  Clover  Lane  and 
toward  the  Main  Street,  which  would  take  her  home. 

I  met  her  as  she  was  dragging  herself  up  the  hill,  white, 
breathless,  exhausted.  Pretending  to  take  the  situation 
lightly,  I  called  as  I  approached: 

"  So  yqa  didn't  leave  the  things." 

Her  answer  was  to  drop  the  suit-case  once  again,  while, 
regardless  of  eurious  eyes  at  windows  and  doors,  she  flew 
to  throw  herself  into  my  arms. 

She  never  explained;  I  never  asked  for  explanations. 
I  was  glad  enough  to  get  her  back  to  the  hotel,  put  her  to 
bed,  and  wait  on  her  hand  and  foot.  She  was  saved  now; 

312 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

Stacy  Grainger,  too,  was  saved.  Each  had  deserted  the 
other;  each  had  the  same  crime  to  forgive.  From  that 
day  onward  she  never  spoke  his  name  to  me. 

But  as,  that  evening,  I  went  to  her  bedside  to  say  good- 
night, she  drew  my  face  to  hers  and  whispered,  cryptically: 

"It  will  be  all  right  now  between  yourself  and  Hugh. 
I  know  how  I  can  help." 


CHAPTER  XX 

MR.  BROKENSHIRE  arrived  on  the  26th  of  June, 
thus  giving  us  a  few  days'  grace.  In  the  interval 
Mrs.  Brokenshire  remained  in  bed,  neither  tired 
nor  ill,  but  white,  silent,  and  withdrawn.  Her  soul's 
tragedy  had  plainly  not  ended  with  her  skimming  retreat 
through  Clover  Lane.  In  the  new  phase  on  which  it  had 
entered  it  was  creating  a  woman,  possibly  a  wife,  where 
there  had  been  only  a  lovely  child  of  arrested  development. 
Slipping  in  and  out  of  her  room,  attending  quietly  to  her 
wants,  I  was  able  to  note,  as  never  in  my  life  before,  the 
beneficent  action  of  suffering. 

Because  she  was  in  bed,  I  folded  my  tent  like  the  Arab 
and  silently  vacated  my  room  in  favor  of  Mr.  Brokenshire. 
I  looked  for  some  objection  on  telling  her  of  this,  but  she 
merely  bit  her  lip  and  said  nothing.  I  had  asked  the 
manager  to  put  me  in  the  most  distant  part  of  the  most 
distant  wing  of  the  hotel,  and  would  have  stolen  away 
altogether  had  it  not  been  for  fear  that  my  poor,  dear  little 
lady  might  need  me. 

As  it  was,  I  kept  out  of  sight  when  Mr.  Brokenshire 
drove  up  with  secretary,  valet,  and  chauffeur,  and  I  con- 
trived to  take  my  meals  at  hours  when  there  could  be  no 
encounter  between  me  and  the  great  personage.  If  I 
was  wanted  I  knew  I  could  be  sent  for;  but  the  27th 
passed  and  no  command  came. 

3U 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

Once  or  twice  I  got  a  distant  view  of  my  enemy,  as  I 
began  to  call  him — majestic,  noble,  stouter,  too,  and  walk- 
ing with  a  slight  waddle  of  the  hips,  which  had  always 
marked  his  carriage  and  became  more  noticeable  as  he 
increased  in  bulk.  Not  having  seen  him  for  nearly  three 
months,  I  observed  that  his  hair  and  beard  were  grayer. 
During  those  first  few  days  I  was  never  near  enough  to  be 
able  to  tell  whether  or  not  there  was  a  change  for  the  better 
or  the  worse  in  his  facial  affliction. 

From  a  chance  word  with  the  cadaverous  Spellman 
on  the  28th  I  learned  that  a  sitting-room  had  been 
arranged  in  connection  with  the  two  bedrooms  Mrs. 
Brokenshire  and  I  had  occupied,  and  that  husband  and 
wife  were  now  taking  their  repasts  in  private.  Later  that 
day  I  saw  them  drive  out  together,  Mrs.  Brokenshire 
no  more  than  a  silhouette  in  the  shadows  of  the  limousine. 
I  drew  the  inference  that,  however  the  soul's  tragedy  was 
working,  it  was  with  some  reconciling  grace  that  did  what 
love  had  never  been  able  to  accomplish.  Perhaps  for  her, 
as  for  me,  there  was  an  appeal  in  this  vain,  fatuous,  suffer- 
ing magnate  of  a  coarse  world's  making  that,  in  spite  of 
everything,  touched  the  springs  of  pity. 

In  any  case,  I  was  content  not  to  be  sent  for — and  to 
rest.  After  a  tranquil  day  or  two  my  own  nerves  had 
calmed  down  and  I  enjoyed  the  delight  of  having 
nothing  on  my  mind.  It  was  extraordinary  how  re- 
mote I  could  keep  myself  while  under  the  same  roof 
with  my  superiors,  especially  when  they  kept  them- 
selves remote  on  their  side.  I  had  decided  on  the  ist 
of  July  as  the  date  to  which  I  should  remain.  If  there 
was  no  demand  for  my  services  by  that  time  I  meant 
to  consider  myself  free  to  go. 

But  events  were  preparing,  had  long  been  preparing, 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

which  changed  my  life  as,  I  suppose,  they  changed  to  a 
greater  or  less  degree  the  majority  of  lives  in  the  world. 
It  was  curious,  too,  how  they  arranged  themselves,  with 
a  neatness  of  coincidence  which  weaves  my  own  small 
drama  as  a  visible  thread — visible  to  me,  that  is — in  the 
vast  tapestry  of  human  history  begun  so  far  back  as  to  be 
time  out  of  mind. 

It  was  the  afternoon  of  Monday  the  apth  of  June, 
1914.  Having  secured  a  Boston  morning  paper,  I 
had  carried  it  off  to  the  back  veranda,  which  was  my 
favorite  retreat,  because  nobody  else  liked  it.  It  was  just 
outside  my  room,  and  looked  up  into  a  hillside  wood,  where 
there  were  birds  and  squirrels,  and  straight  bronze  pine- 
trunks  wherever  the  sunlight  fell  aslant  on  them.  At  long 
intervals,  too,  a  partridge  hen  came  down  with  her  little 
brood,  clucking  her  low  wooden  cluck  and  pecking  at 
tender  shoots  invisible  to  me,  till  she  wandered  off  once 
more  into  the  hidden  depths  of  the  stillness. 

But  I  wasn't  watching  for  the  partridge  hen  that  after- 
noon. I  was  thrilled  by  the  tale  of  the  assassination  of  the 
Archduke  Franz  Ferdinand  and  the  Duchess  of  Hohen- 
berg,  which  had  taken  place  at  Sarajevo  on  the  previous 
day.  Millions  of  other  readers,  who,  no  more  than  I,  felt 
their  own  destinies  involved  were  being  thrilled  at  the  same 
moment.  The  judgment  trumpet  was  sounding — only 
not  as  we  had  expected  it.  There  was  no  blast  from  the 
sky — no  sudden  troop  of  angels.  There  was  only  the 
soundless  vibration  of  the  wire  and  of  the  Hertzian  waves; 
there  was  only  the  casting  of  type  and  the  rattling  of  in- 
numerable reams  of  paper;  and,  as  the  Bible  says,  the 
dead  could  hear  the  voice,  and  they  that  heard  it  stood 
still;  and  the  nations  were  summoned  before  the  Throne 
"that  was  set  in  the  midst."  I  was  summoned,  with 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

my  own  people — though  I  didn't  know  it  was  a  summons 
till  afterward. 

The  paper  had  fallen  to  my  knee  when  I  was  startled  to 
see  Mr.  Brokenshire  come  round  the  corner  of  my  retreat. 
Dressed  entirely  in  white,  with  no  color  in  his  costume  save 
the  lavender  stripe  in  his  shirt  and  collar,  and  the  violet  of 
his  socks,  handkerchief,  and  tie,  he  would  have  been  the 
perfect  type  of  the  middle-aged  exquisite  had  it  not  been 
for  the  pitiless  distortion  of  his  eye  the  minute  he  caught 
sight  of  me.  That  he  had  not  stumbled  on  me  acci- 
dentally I  judged  by  the  way  in  which  he  lifted  a  Panama 
of  the  kind  that  is  said  to  be  made  under  water  and  is 
costlier  than  the  costliest  feminine  confection  by  Caroline 
Ledoux. 

I  was  struggling  out  of  my  wicker  chair  when  the  uplift- 
ed hand  forbade  me. 

"Be  good  enough  to  stay  where  you  are,"  he  com- 
manded, but  more  gently  than  he  had  ever  spoken  to  me. 
"  I've  some  things  to  say  to  you." 

Too  frightened  to  make  a  further  attempt  to  move,  I 
looked  at  him  as  he  drew  up  a  chair  similar  to  my  own, 
which  creaked  under  his  weight  when  he  sat  down  in 
it.  The  afternoon  being  hot,  and  my  veranda  lacking  air, 
which  was  one  of  the  reasons  why  it  was  left  to  me,  he 
mopped  his  brow  with  the  violet  handkerchief,  on  which 
an  enormous  monogram  was  embroidered  in  white.  I 
divined  his  reluctance  to  begin  not  only  from  his  long 
hesitation,  but  from  the  renewed  contortion  of  his  face. 
His  hand  went  up  to  the  left  cheek  as  if  to  hold  it  in  place, 
though  with  no  success  in  the  effort.  When,  at  last,  he 
spoke  there  was  a  stiffness  in  his  utterance  suggestive  of 
an  affection  extending  now  to  the  lips  or  the  tongue. 

"I  want  you  to  know  how  much  I  appreciate  the  help 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

you've  given  to  Mrs.  Brokenshire  during  her — her" — he 
had  a  difficulty  in  finding  the  right  word — "during  her 
indisposition,"  he  finished,  rather  weakly. 

"I  did  no  more  than  I  was  glad  to  do,"  I  responded,  as 
weakly  as  he. 

"Exactly;  and  yet  I  can't  allow  such  timely  aid  to  go 
unrewarded." 

I  was  alarmed.  Grasping  the  arms  of  the  chair,  I  braced 
myself. 

"  If  you  mean  money,  sir — " 

"No;  I  mean  more  than  money."  He,  too,  braced  him- 
self. "I — I  withdraw  my  opposition  to  your  marriage 
with  my  son." 

The  immediate  change  in  my  consciousness  was  in  the 
nature  of  a  dissolving  view.  The  veranda  faded  away, 
and  the  hillside  wood.  Once  more  I  saw  the  imaginary 
dining-room,  and  myself  in  a  smart  little  dinner  gown 
seating  the  guests;  once  more  I  saw  the  white-enameled 
nursery,  and  myself  in  a  lace  peignoir  leaning  over  the 
bassinet.  As  in  previous  visions  of  the  kind,  Hugh  was 
a  mere  shadow  in  the  background,  secondary  to  the  home 
and  the  baby. 

Secondary  to  the  home  and  the  baby  was  the  fact  that 
my  object  was  accomplished  and  that  my  enemy  had  come 
to  his  knees.  Indeed,  I  felt  no  particular  elation  from  that 
element  in  the  case;  no  special  sense  of  victory.  Like  so 
many  realized  ambitions,  it  seemed  a  matter  of  course, 
now  that  it  had  come.  Nevertheless,  it  seemed  to  me  that 
for  my  own  sake  and  for  the  sake  of  the  future  I  must  have 
a  more  definite  expression  of  surrender  than  he  had  yet 
given  me. 

I  remembered  that  Mrs.  Brokenshire  had  said  she  would 
help  me,  and  could  imagine  how.  I  summoned  up  every- 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

thing  within  me  that  would  rank  as  force  of  character, 
speaking  quietly. 

"I  should  be  sorry,  sir,  to  have  you  come  to  this  decision 
against  your  better  judgment." 

"If  you'll  be  kind  enough  to  accept  the  fact,"  he  said, 
sharply,  "we  can  leave  my  manner  of  reaching  it  out  of  the 
discussion." 

In  spite  of  the  tone  I  rallied  my  resources. 

"I  don't  want  to  be  presumptuous,  sir;  but  if  I'm  to 
enter  your  family  I  should  like  to  feel  sure  that  you'll 
receive  me  whole-heartedly." 

"My  dear  young  lady,  isn't  it  assurance  enough  that 
I  receive  you  at  all?  When  I  bring  myself  to  that — " 

"Oh,  please  don't  think  I  can't  appreciate  the  sacrifice." 

"Then  what  more  is  to  be  said?" 

' '  But  the  sacrifice  is  the  point .  No  girl  wants  to  become 
one  of  a  family  which  has  to  make  such  an  effort  to  take 
her." 

There  was  already  a  whisper  of  insecurity  in  his  tone. 

"Even  so,  I  can't  see  why  you  shouldn't  let  the  effort  be 
our  affair.  Since  we  make  it  on  our  own  responsibility — " 

"I  don't  care  anything  about  the  responsibility,  sir. 
All  I'm  thinking  of  is  that  the  effort  must  be  made." 

"But  what  did  you  expect?" 

"  I  haven't  said  that  I  expected  anything.  If  I've  been 
of  the  slightest  help  to  Mrs.  Brokenshire  I'm  happy  to  let 
the  service  be  its  own  reward." 

"But  I'm  not.  It  isn't  my  habit  to  remain  under  an 
obligation  to  any  one." 

"Nor  mine,"  I  said,  demurely. 

He  stared. 

' '  What  does  that  mean  ?     I  don't  follow  you. ' ' 

"  Perhaps  not,  sir ;  but  I  quite  follow  you.     You  wish  me 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

to  understand  that,  in  spite  of  my  deficiencies,  you  accept 
me  as  your  son's  wife — for  the  reason  that  you  can't  help 
yourself." 

Two  sharp  hectic  spots  came  out  on  each  cheek-bone. 

"Well,  what  if  I  do?" 

"I'm  far  too  generous  to  put  you  in  that  position.  I 
couldn't  take  you  at  a  disadvantage,  not  even  for  the  sake 
of  marrying  Hugh." 

I  was  not  sure  whether  he  was  frightened  or  angry,  but 
it  was  the  one  or  the  other. 

"Do  you  mean  to  say  that,  now — now  that  I'm 
ready—" 

"That  I'm  not?  Yes,  sir.  That's  what  I  do  mean  to 
say.  I  told  you  once  that  if  I  loved  a  man  I  shouldn't  stop 
to  consider  the  wishes  of  his  relatives;  but  I've  repented  of 
that.  I  see  now  that  marriage  has  a  wider  application 
than  merely  to  individuals ;  and  I'm  not  ready  to  enter  any 
family  that  doesn't  want  me." 

I  looked  off  into  the  golden  dimnesses  of  the  hillside 
wood  in  order  not  to  be  a  witness  of  the  struggle  he  was 
making. 

"And  suppose" — it  was  almost  a  groan — "and  suppose 
I  said  we — wanted  you  ?" 

It  was  like  bending  an  iron  bar;  but  I  gave  my  strength 
to  it. 

"You'd  have  to  say  it  differently  from  that,  sir." 

He  spoke  hoarsely. 

"  Differently — in  what  sense?" 

I  knew  I  had  him,  as  Hugh  would  have  expressed  it, 
where  I  had  been  trying  to  get  him. 

"  In  the  sense  that  if  you  want  me  you  must  ask  me. ' ' 

He  mopped  his  brow  once  more. 

"I — I  have  asked  you." 

320 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

"You've  said  you  withdrew  your  opposition.  That's 
not  enough." 

Beads  of  perspiration  were  again  standing  on  his  fore- 
head. 

"Then  what — what  would  be — enough?" 

"A  woman  can't  marry  any  one  unless  she  does  it  as 
something  of  a  favor." 

He  drew  himself  up. 

"  Do  you  remember  that  you're  talking  to  me?" 

"Yes,  sir;  and  it's  because  I  do  remember  it  that  I  have 
to  insist.  With  anybody  else  I  shouldn't  have  to  be  so 
crude." 

Again  he  put  up  a  struggle,  and  this  time  I  watched  him. 
If  his  wife  had  made  the  conditions  I  guessed  at,  I  had 
nothing  to  do  but  sit  still.  Grasping  the  arms  of  his  chair, 
he  half  rose  as  if  to  continue  the  interview  no  further,  but 
immediately  saw,  as  I  inferred,  what  that  would  mean  to 
him.  He  fell  back  again  into  the  creaking  depths  of  the 
chair. 

"What  do  you  wish  me  to  say?" 

But  his  stricken  aspect  touched  me.  Now  that  he 
was  prepared  to  come  to  his  knees,  I  had  no  heart 
to  force  him  down  on  them.  Since  I  had  gained  my 
point,  it  was  foolish  to  battle  on,  or  try  to  make  the 
Ethiopian  change  his  skin. 

"Oh,  sir,  you've  said  it!"  I  cried,  with  sudden  emotion. 
I  leaned  toward  him,  clasping  my  hands.  "I  see  you  do 
want  me;  and  since  you  do  I '11 — I'll  come." 

Having  made  this  concession,  I  became  humble  and 
thankful  and  tactful.  I  appeased  him  by  saying  I  was 
sensible  of  the  honor  he  did  me,  that  I  was  happy  in  the 
thought  that  he  was  to  be  reconciled  with  Hugh;  and  I 
inquired  for  Mrs.  Brokenshire.  Leading  up  to  this  ques- 

321 


tion  with  an  air  of  guilelessness,  I  got  the  answer  I  was 
watching  for  in  the  ashen  shade  that  settled  on  his  face. 

I  forget  what  he  replied;  I  was  really  not  listening.  I 
was  calling  up  the  scene  in  which  she  must  have  fulfilled 
her  promise  of  helping  Hugh  and  me.  From  the  some- 
thing crushed  in  him,  as  in  the  case  of  a  man  who  knows  the 
worst  at  last,  I  gathered  that  she  had  made  a  clean  breast 
of  it.  It  was  awesome  to  think  that  behind  this  immacu- 
late white  suit  with  its  violet  details,  behind  this  pink  of 
the  old  beau,  behind  this  moneyed  authority  and  this 
power  of  dictation  to  which  even  the  mighty  sometimes 
had  to  bow,  there  was  a  broken  heart. 

He  knew  now  that  the  bird  he  had  captured  was  nothing 
but  a  captured  bird,  and  always  longing  for  the  forest. 
That  his  wife  was  willing  to  bear  his  name  and  live  in  his 
house  and  submit  to  his  embraces  was  largely  because  I 
had  induced  her.  Whether  or  not,  in  spite  of  his  pompous- 
ness,  he  was  grateful  to  me  I  didn't  know ;  but  I  guessed 
that  he  was  not.  He  could  accept  such  benefits  as  I  had 
secured  him  and  yet  be  resentful  toward  the  curious  provi- 
dence that  had  chosen  me  in  particular  as  its  instrument. 

I  came  out  of  my  meditations  in  time  to  hear  him  say 
that,  Mrs.  Brokenshire  being  as  well  rested  as  she  was,  there 
would  be  no  further  hindrance  to  their  proceeding  soon 
to  Newport. 

"And  I  suppose  I  might  go  back  to  my  home,"  I  ob- 
served, with  no  other  than  the  best  intentions. 

He  made  an  attempt  to  regain  the  authority  he  had  just 
forfeited. 

"What  for?" 

"To  be  married,"  I  explained — "since  I  am  to  be 
married." 

"But  why  should  you  be  married  there?" 

322 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

"Wouldn't  it  be  the  most  natural  thing?" 

"It  wouldn't  be  the  most  natural  thing  for  Hugh." 

"A  man  can  be  married  anywhere;  whereas  a  woman, 
at  such  a  turning-point  in  her  life,  needs  a  certain  backing. 
I've  an  uncle  and  aunt  and  a  great  many  friends — " 

The  effort  at  a  faint  smile  drew  up  the  corner  of  his 
mouth  and  set  his  face  awry. 

"You'll  excuse  me,  my  dear" — the  epithet  made  me 
jump — "if  I  correct  you  on  a  point  of  taste.  In  being 
willing  that  Hugh  should  marry  you  I  think  I  must  draw 
the  line  at  anything  like  parade." 

I  know  my  eyebrows  went  up. 

"  Parade  ?     Parade— how  ?' ' 

The  painful  little  smile  persisted. 

"The  ancient  Romans,  when  they  went  to  war,  had  a 
custom  of  bringing  back  the  most  conspicuous  of  their 
captives  and  showing  them  in  triumph  in  the  streets — " 

I,  too,  smiled. 

"Oh!  I  understand.  But  you  see,  sir,  the  comparison 
doesn't  hold  in  this  case,  because  none  of  my  friends  would 
know  anything  more  about  Hugh  than  the  fact  that  he  was 
an  American." 

The  crooked  features  went  back  into  repose. 

"  They'd  know  he  was  my  son." 

I  continued  to  smile,  but  sweetly. 

"They'd  take  it  for  granted  that  he  was  somebody's 
son — but  they  wouldn't  know  anything  about  you,  sir. 
You'd  be  quite  safe  so  far  as  that  went.  Though  I  don't 
live  many  hundreds  of  miles  from  New  York,  and  we're 
fairly  civilized,  I  had  never  so  much  as  heard  the  name  of 
Brokenshire  till  Mrs.  Rossiter  told  me  it  was  hers  before 
she  was  married.  You  see,  then,  that  there'd  be  no  danger 
of  my  leading  a  captive  in  triumph.  No  one  I  know  would 

323 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

give  Hugh  a  second  thought  beyond  being  nice  to  the  man 
I  was  marrying." 

That  he  was  pleased  with  this  explanation  I  cannot 
affirm,  but  he  passed  it  over. 

"I  think,"  was  his  way  of  responding,  "that  it  will  be 
better  if  we  consider  that  you  belong  to  us.  Till  your 
marriage  to  Hugh,  which  I  suppose  will  take  place  in  the 
autumn,  you'll  come  back  with  us  to  Newport.  There 
will  be  a  whole  new — how  shall  I  put  it? — a  whole  new 
phase  of  life  for  you  to  get  used  to.  Hugh  will  stay  with 
us,  and  I  shall  ask  my  daughter,  Mrs.  Rossiter,  to  be  your 
hostess  till — " 

As,  without  finishing  his  sentence,  he  rose  I  followed  his 
example.  Though  knowing  in  advance  how  futile  would 
be  the  attempt  to  present  myself  as  an  equal,  I  couldn't 
submit  to  this  calm  disposition  of  my  liberty  and  person 
without  putting  up  a  fight. 

"I've  a  great  preference,  sir — if  you'll  allow  me — for 
being  married  in  my  own  home,  among  my  own  people, 
and  in  the  old  parish  church  in  which  I  was  baptized.  I 
really  have  people  and  a  background;  and  it's  possible 
that  my  sisters  might  come  over — " 

The  hand  went  up;  his  tone  put  an  end  to  discussion. 

"I  think,  my  dear  Alexandra,  that  we  shall  do  best  in 
considering  that  you  belong  to  us.  You'll  need  time  to 
grow  accustomed  to  your  new  situation.  A  step  back- 
ward now  might  be  perilous." 

My  fight  was  ended.  What  could  I  do?  I  listened  and 
submitted,  while  he  went  on  to  tell  me  that  Mrs.  Broken- 
shire  would  wish  to  see  me  during  the  day,  that  Hugh 
would  be  sent  for  and  would  probably  arrive  the  next  after- 
noon, and  that  by  the  end  of  the  week  we  should  all  be 
settled  in  Newport.  There,  whenever  I  felt  I  needed  in- 

324 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

struction,  I  was  not  to  be  ashamed  to  ask  for  it.  Mrs. 
Rossiter  would  explain  anything  of  a  social  nature  that 
I  didn't  understand,  and  he  knew  I  could  count  on  Mrs. 
Brokenshire's  protection. 

With  a  comic  inward  grimace  I  swallowed  all  my  pride 
and  thanked  him. 

As  for  Mrs.  Brokenshire's  protection,  that  was  settled 
when,  later  in  the  afternoon,  we  sat  on  her  balcony  and 
laughed  and  cried  together,  and  held  each  other's  hands,  as 
young  women  do  when  their  emotions  outrun  their  power 
of  expression.  She  called  me  Alix  and  begged  me  to  invent 
a  name  for  her  that  would  combine  the  dignity  of  Hugh's 
stepmother  with  our  standing  as  friends.  I  chose  Miladi, 
out  of  Les  Trois  Mousquetaires,  with  which  she  was 
delighted. 

I  begged  off  from  dining  with  them  that  evening,  nomi- 
nally because  I  was  too  upset  by  all  I  had  lived  through  in 
the  afternoon,  but  really  for  the  reason  that  I  couldn't 
bear  the  thought  of  Mr.  Brokenshire  calling  me  his  dear 
Alexandra  twice  in  the  same  day.  Once  had  made  my 
blood  run  cold.  His  method  of  shriveling  up  a  name  by 
merely  pronouncing  it  is  something  that  transcends  my 
power  to  describe.  He  had  ruined  that  of  Adare  with  me 
forever,  and  now  he  was  completing  my  confusion  at  being 
called  after  so  lovely  a  creature  as  our  queen.  I  have 
always  admitted  that,  with  its  stately,  regal  suggestions, 
Alexandra  is  no  symbol  for  a  plain  little  body  like  me; 
but  when  Mr.  Brokenshire  took  it  on  his  lips  and  called 
me  his  dear  I  could  have  cried  out  for  mercy.  So  I  had  my 
dinner  by  myself,  munching  slowly  and  meditating  on 
irhat  Mr.  Brokenshire  described  as  "my  new  situation." 

I  was  meditating  on  it  still  when,  in  the  course  of  the 
following  afternoon,  I  was  sitting  in  a  retired  grove  of  the 

325 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

hillside  wood  waiting  for  Hugh  to  come  and  find  me.  He 
was  to  arrive  about  three  and  Miladi  was  to  tell  him  where 
I  was.  In  our  crowded  little  inn,  with  its  crowded  grounds, 
nooks  of  privacy  were  rare. 

I  had  taken  the  Boston  paper  with  me  in  order  to  get 
further  details  of  the  tragedy  of  Sarajevo.  These  I  found 
absorbing.  They  wove  themselves  in  with  my  thoughts  of 
Hugh  and  my  dreams  of  our  life  together.  An  article  on 
Serbia,  which  I  had  found  in  an  old  magazine  that  morn- 
ing, had  given  me,  too,  an  understanding  of  the  situation 
I  hadn't  had  before.  Up  to  that  day  Serbia  had  been  but 
a  name  to  me ;  now  I  began  to  see  its  significance.  The 
story  of  this  brave,  patient  little  people,  with  its  one 
idea — an  idee  fixe  of  liberty — began  to  move  me. 

Of  all  the  races  of  Europe  the  Serbian  impressed  me  as 
the  one  that  had  been  most  constantly  thwarted  in  its 
natural  ambitions — struck  down  whenever  it  attempted  to 
rise.  Its  patriotic  hopes  had  always  been  inconvenient 
to  some  other  nation's  patriotic  hopes,  and  so  had  to  be 
blasted  systematical^.  England,  France,  Austria,  Tur- 
key, Italy,  and  Russia  had  taken  part  at  various  times  in 
this  circumvention,  denying  the  fruits  of  victory  after 
they  had  been  won.  Serbia  had  been  the  poor  little 
bastard  brother  of  Europe,  kept  out  of  the  inheritance 
of  justice  and  freedom  and  commerce  when  others  were 
admitted  to  a  share.  For  some  of  them  there  might 
have  been  no  great  share;  but  for  little  Serbia  there  was 
none. 

It  was  terrible  to  me  that  such  wrong  could  go  on, 
generation  after  generation,  and  that  there  should  be  no 
Nemesis.  In  a  measure  it  contradicted  my  theory  of 
right.  I  didn't  want  any  one  to  suffer,  but  I  asked  why 
there  had  been  no  suffering.  Of  the  nations  that  had 

326 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

knocked  Serbia  about,  hedged  her  in  by  restrictions,  dis- 
membered her  and  ket>t  her  dismembered,  most  were 
prosperous.  From  Serbia's  point  of  view  I  couldn't  help 
sympathizing  with  the  hand  that  had  struck  down  at  least 
one  member  of  the  House  of  Hapsburg;  and  yet  in  that 
tragic  act  there  could  be  no  adequate  revenge  for  centuries 
of  repression.  What  I  wanted  I  didn't  know ;  I  suppose  I 
didn't  want  anything.  I  was  only  wondering — wonder- 
ing why,  if  individuals  couldn't  sin  without  paying  for  the 
sin  they  had  committed,  nations  should  sin  and  be  im- 
mune. 

Strangely  enough,  these  reflections  did  not  shut  out  the 
thought  of  the  lover  who  was  coming  up  the  hill;  they 
blended  with  it;  they  made  it  larger  and  more  vital.  I 
could  thank  God  I  was  marrying  a  man  whose  hand  would 
always  be  lifted  on  behalf  of  right.  I  didn't  know  how  it 
could  be  lifted  in  the  cause  of  Serbia  against  the  influences 
represented  by  Franz  Ferdinand ;  but  when  one  is  dream- 
ing one  doesn't  pause  to  direct  the  logical  course  of  one's 
dreams.  Perhaps  I  was  only  clutching  at  whatever  I 
could  say  for  Hugh ;  and  at  least  I  could  say  that.  He  was 
not  a  strong  man  in  the  sense  of  being  fertile  in  ideas ;  but 
he  was  brave  and  generous,  and  where  there  was  injustice 
his  spirit  would  be  among  the  first  to  bia^irred  by  it. 

M 

That  conviction  made  me  welcome  him  U-V-  An,  it  last,  I 
saw  his  stocky  figure  moving  lower  down  amoiiv  tte  pine 
trunks. 

I  caught  sight  of  him  long  before  he  discovered  me,  and 
could  make  my  notes  upon  him.  I  could  even  make  my 
notes  upon  myself,  not  wholly  with  r?y  own  approval.  I 
was  too  business-like,  too  cool.  The>e  \<as  nothing  I  pos- 
sessed in  the  world  that  I  would  not  havo  ^ftp<n  for  a  single 
quickened  heart-throb.  I  would  have  givoo  it  the  more 

22  327 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

when  I  saw  Hugh's  pinched  face  and  the  furbished-up 
spring  suit  he  had  worn  the  year  before. 

It  was  not  the  fact  that  he  had  worn  it  the  year  before 
that  gave  me  a  pang;  it  was  that  he  must  have  worn  it 
pretty  steadily.  I  am  not  observant  of  men's  clothes. 
Except  that  I  like  to  see  them  neat,  they  are  too  much 
alike  to  be  worth  noticing.  But  anything  not  plainly 
opulent  in  Hugh  smote  me  with  a  sense  of  guilt.  It  could 
so  easily  be  attributed  to  my  fault.  I  could  so  easily  take 
it  so  myself.  I  did  take  it  so  myself.  I  said  as  he  ap- 
proached: "This  man  has  suffered.  He  has  suffered  on 
my  account.  All  my  life  must  be  given  to  making  it  up 
to  him." 

I  make  no  attempt  to  tell  how  we  met.  It  was  much  as 
we  had  met  after  other  separations,  except  that  when  he 
slipped  to  the  low  boulder  and  took  me  in  his  arms  it  was 
with  a  certainty  of  possession  which  had  never  hitherto 
belonged  to  him.  There  was  nothing  for  me  but  to  let 
myself  go,  and  lie  back  in  his  embrace. 

I  came  to  myself,  as  it  were,  on  hearing  him  whisper, 
with  his  face  close  to  mine : 

"You  witch!  You  witch!  How  did  you  ever  manage 
it?" 

I  made  the  ••eoessity  for  giving  him  an  explanation  the 
excuse  for  v/orKeng  myself  free. 

"  I  didn't  manage  it.     It  was  Mrs.  Brokenshire." 

He  cried  out,  incredulously: 

"  Oh  no !    Not  the  madam !" 

"Yes,  Hugh.  It  was  she.  She  asked  him.  She  must 
have  begged  him.  Tn/it's  all  I  can  tell  you  about  it." 

He  was  eren  more  incredulous. 

"Then  it  rrjast  nave  been  on  your  account  rather  than 
on  mine;  you  can  bet  your  sweet  life  on  that!" 

328 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

"Hugh,  darling,  she's  fond  of  you.  She's  fond  of  you 
all.  If  you  could  only  have — " 

"We  couldn't."  For  the  first  time  he  showed  signs  of 
admitting  me  into  the  family  sense  of  disgrace.  "  Did  you 
ever  hear  how  dad  came  to  marry  her?" 

I  said  that  something  had  reached  me,  but  one  couldn't 
put  the  blame  for  that  on  her. 

"And  she's  had  more  pull  with  him  than  we've  had," 
he  declared,  resentfully.  "You  can  see  that  by  the  way 
he's  given  in  to  her  on  this — " 

I  soothed  him  on  this  point,  however,  and  we  talked  of 
a  general  reconciliation.  From  that  we  went  on  to  the 
subject  of  our  married  life,  of  which  his  father,  in  the 
hasty  interview  of  half  an  hour  before,  had  briefly  sketched 
the  conditions.  A  place  was  to  be  found  for  Hugh  in  the 
house  of  Meek  &  Brokenshire;  his  allowance  was  to  be 
raised  to  twelve  or  fifteen  thousand  a  year;  we  were  to 
have  a  modest  house  or  apartment  in  New  York.  No  date 
had  been  fixed  for  the  wedding,  so  far  as  Hugh  could  learn ; 
but  it  might  be  in  October.  We  should  be  granted  per- 
haps a  three  months'  trip  abroad,  with  a  return  to  New 
York  before  Christmas. 

He  gave  me  these  details  with  an  excitement  bespeaking 
intense  satisfaction.  It  was  easy  to  see  that,  after  his  ten 
months'  rebellion,  he  was  eager  to  put  his  head  under  the 
Brokenshire  yoke  again.  His  instinct  in  this  was  similar 
to  Ethel's  and  Jack's — only  that  they  had  never  declared 
themselves  free.  I  could  best  compare  him  to  a  horse  who 
for  one  glorious  half-hour  kicks  up  his  heels  and  runs 
away,  and  yet  returns  to  the  stable  and  the  harness  as  the 
safest  sphere  of  blessedness.  Under  the  Brokenshire  yoke 
he  could  live,  move,  have  his  being,  and  enjoy  his  twelve 
or  fifteen  thousand  a  year,  without  that  onerous  responsi- 

329 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

bility  which  comes  with  the  exercise  of  choice.  Under 
the  Brokenshire  yoke  I,  too,  should  be  provided  for.  I 
should  be  raised  from  my  lowly  estate,  be  given  a  position 
in  the  world,  and,  though  for  a  while  the  fact  of  the  mesal- 
liance might  tell  against  me,  it  would  be  overcome  in  my 
case  as  in  that  of  Libby  Jaynes.  His  talk  was  a  paean  on 
our  luck. 

"All  we'll  have  to  do  for  the  rest  of  our  lives,  little  Alix, 
will  be  to  get  away  with  our  thousand  dollars  a  month.  I 
guess  we  can  do  that — what?  We  sha'n't  even  have  to 
save,  because  in  the  natural  course  of  events — "  He  left 
this  reference  to  his  father's  demise  to  go  on  with  his  hymn 
of  self -congratulation.  "But  we've  pulled  it  off,  haven't 
we?  We've  done  the  trick.  Lord!  what  a  relief  it  is! 
What  do  you  think  I've  been  living  on  for  the  last  six 
weeks?  Chocolate  and  crackers  for  the  most  part.  Lost 
thirty  pounds  in  two  months.  But  it's  all  right  now,  little 
Alix.  I've  got  you  and  I  mean  to  keep  you."  He  asked, 
suddenly:  "How  did  you  come  to  know  the  madam  so 
well?  I'd  never  had  a  hint  of  it.  You  do  keep  some 
things  awful  close!" 

I  made  my  answer  as  truthful  as  I  could. 

"This  was  nothing  I  could  tell  you,  Hugh.  Mrs. 
Brokenshire  was  sorry  for  me  ever  since  last  year  in  New- 
port. She  never  dared  to  say  anything  about  it,  because 
she  was  a^aid  of  your  father  and  the  rest  of  you;  but  she 
did  pity  me — " 

"Well,  I'll  be  blowed!  I  didn't  suppose  she  had  it  in 
her.  She's  always  seemed  to  me  like  a  woman  walking 
in  her  sleep — " 

"She's  waking  up  now.  She's  beginning  to  understand 
that  perhaps  she  hasn't  taken  the  right  attitude  toward 
your  father;  and  I  think  she'd  like  to  begin.  It  was  to 

330 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

work  that  problem  out  that  she  decided  to  come  away  with 
me  and  live  simply  for  a  while.  .  .  .  She  wanted  to 
escape  from  every  one,  and  I  was  the  nearest  to  no  one  she 
could  find  to  take  with  her;  and  so —  If  your  sisters  or 
your  brother  ask  you  any  questions  I  wish  you  would  tell 
them  that." 

We  discussed  this  theme  in  its  various  aspects  while  the 
afternoon  light  turned  the  pine  trunks  round  us  into 
columns  of  red-gold,  and  a  soft  wind  soothed  us  with 
balsamic  smells.  Birds  flitted  and  fluted  overhead,  and 
now  and  then  a  squirrel  darted  up  to  challenge  us  with  the 
peak  of  its  inquisitive  sharp  little  nose.  I  chose  what  I 
thought  a  favorable  moment  to  bring  before  Hugh  the 
matter  that  had  been  so  summarily  shelved  by  his  father. 
I  wanted  so  much  to  be  married  among  my  own  people 
and  from  what  I  could  call  my  own  home. 

His  child-like,  wide-apart,  small  blue  eyes  regarded  me 
with  growing  astonishment  as  I  made  my  point  clear. 

"For  Heaven's  sake,  my  sweet  little  Alix,  what  do 
you  want  that  for?  Why,  we  can  be  married  in  New- 
port!" 

His  emphasis  on  the  word  Newport  was  as  if  he  had  said 
Heaven. 

"Yes;  but  you  see,  Hugh,  darling,  Newport  means 
nothing  to  me — " 

"It  will  jolly  well  have  to  if—" 

' '  And  my  home  means  such  a  lot.  If  you  were  marrying 
Lady  Cissie  Boscobel  you'd  certainly  go  to  Goldborough 
for  the  occasion." 

"Ah,  but  that  would  be  different!" 

' '  Different  in  what  way  ?' ' 

He  colored,  and  grew  confused. 

"Well,  don't  you  see?" 

33i 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

"No;  I'm  afraid  I  don't." 

"Oh  yes,  you  do,  little  Alix,"  he  smiled,  cajolingly. 
"Don't  try  to  pull  my  leg.  We  can't  have  one  of  these 
bang-up  weddings,  as  it  is.  Of  course  we  can't — and  we 
don't  want  it.  But  they'll  do  the  decent  thing  by  us,  now 
that  dad  has  come  round  at  all,  and  let  people  see  that  they 
stand  behind  us.  If  we  were  to  go  down  there  to  where 
you  came  from — Halifax,  or  wherever  it  is — it  would  put 
us  back  ten  years  with  the  people  we  want  to  keep  up 
with." 

I  submitted  again,  because  I  didn't  know  what  else  to 
do.  I  submitted,  and  yet  with  a  rage  which  was  the  hotter 
for  being  impotent.  These  people  took  it  so  easily  for 
granted  that  I  had  no  pride,  and  was  entitled  to  none. 
They  allowed  me  no  more  in  the  way  of  antecedents  than 
if  I  had  been  a  new  creation  on  the  day  when  I  first  met 
Mrs.  Rossiter.  They  believed  in  the  principle  of  inequal- 
ity of  birth  as  firmly  as  if  they  had  been  minor  German 
royalties.  My  marriage  to  Hugh  might  be  valid  in  the 
eyes  of  the  law,  but  to  them  it  would  always  be  more  or 
less  morganatic.  I  could  only  be  Duchess  of  Hohenberg 
to  this  young  prince;  and  perhaps  not' even  that.  She 
was  noble — adel,  as  they  call  it — at  the  least;  while  I  was 
merely  a  nursemaid. 

But  I  made  another  grimace — and  swallowed  it.  I 
could  have  broken  out  with  some  vicious  remark,  which 
would  have  bewildered  poor  Hugh  beyond  expression  and 
made  no  'change  in  his  point  of  view.  Even  if  it  re- 
lieved my  pent-up  bitterness,  it  would  have  left  me 
nothing  but  a  nursemaid;  and,  since  I  was  to  marry  him, 
why  disturb  the  peace?  And  I  owed  him  too  much  not  to 
marry  him;  of  that  I  was  convinced.  He  had  been  kind 
to  me  from  the  first  day  he  knew  me ;  he  had  been  true  to 

332 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

me  in  ways  in  which  few  men  would  have  been  true.  To 
go  back  on  him  now  would  not  be  simply  a  change  of 
mind;  it  would  be  an  act  of  cruel  treachery.  No,  I 
argued;  I  could  do  nothing  but  go  on  with  it.  My  debt 
could  not  be  paid  in  any  other  way.  Besides,  I  declared 
to  myself,  with  a  catch  in  the  throat,  I — I  loved  him.  I 
had  said  it  so  many  times  that  it  must  be  true 

When  the  minute  came  to  go  down  the  hill  and  prepare 
for  the  little  dinner  at  which  I  was  to  be  included  in  the 
family,  my  thoughts  reverted  to  the  event  that  had 
startled  the  world. 

"Isn't  this  terrible?"  I  said  to  Hugh,  indicating  the 
paper  I  carried  in  my  hand. 

He  looked  at  me  with  the  mild  wondering  which  always 
made  his  expression  vacuous. 

4 'Isn't  what  terrible?" 

"Why,  the  assassinations  in  Bosnia." 

"  Oh !  I  saw  there  had  been  something." 

"Something!"  I  cried.  "It's  one  of  the  most  moment- 
ous things  that  have  ever  happened  in  history." 

"What  makes  you  say  that?"  he  inquired,  turning  on 
me  the  innocent  stare  of  his  baby-blue  eyes  as  we  saun- 
tered between  the  pine  trunks. 

I  had  to  admit  that  I  didn't  know.  I  only  felt  it  in  my 
bones. 

"Aren't  they  always  doing  something  of  the  sort  down 
there — killing  kings  and  queens,  or  something?" 

"Oh,  not  like  this!"  I  paused.  "You  know,  Hugh, 
Serbia  is  a  wonderful  little  country  when  you've  heard  a 
bit  of  its  story. " 

"  Is  it  ?"     He  took  out  a  cigarette  and  lit  it. 

In  the  ardor  of  my  sympathy  I  poured  out  on  him  some 
of  the  information  I  had  just  acquired. 

333 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

"And  we're  all  responsible,"  I  was  finishing;  "English, 
French,  Russians,  Austrians — " 

"We're  not  responsible — we  Americans,"  he  broke  in, 
quietly 

"Oh,  I'm  not  so  sure  about  that.  If  you  inherit  the 
civilization  of  the  races  from  which  you  spring  you  inherit 
some  of  their  crimes;  and  you've  got  to  pay  for  them." 

' Not  on  your  life!"  he  laughed,  easily;  but  in  the  laugh 
there  was  something  that  cut  me  more  deeply  than  he 
knew. 


BUT  once  we  were  settled  in  Newport,  I  almost  forgot 
the  tragedy  of  Sarajevo.     The  world,  it  seemed  to 
me,  had  forgotten  it,  too;    it  had  passed  into  history. 
Franz  Ferdinand  and  Sophie  Chotek  being  dead  and 
buried,  we  had  gone  on  to  something  else. 

Personally  I  had  gone  on  to  the  readjustment  of  my  life. 
I  was  with  Ethel  Rossiter  as  a  guest.  Guest  or  retainer, 
however,  made  little  difference.  She  treated  me  just  as 
before — with  the  same  detached,  live-and-let-live  kind- 
liness that  dropped  into  the  old  habit  of  making  use  of  me. 
I  liked  that.  It  kept  us  on  a  simple,  natural  footing.  I 
could  see  myself  writing  her  notes  and  answering  her  tele- 
phone calls  as  long  as  I  lived.  Except  that  now  and  then, 
when  she  thought  of  it,  she  called  me  Alix,  instead  of 
Miss  Adare,  she  might  still  have  been  paying  me  so  much  a 
month. 

"Well,  I  can't  get  over  father,"  was  the  burden  of  her 
congratulations  to  me.  "I  knew  that  woman  could  turn 
him  round  her  finger;  but  I  didn't  suppose  she  could  do  it 
like  that.  You  played  your  cards  well  in  getting  hold  of 
her." 

"I  didn't  play  my  cards,"  was  my  usual  defense,  "be- 
cause I  had  none  to  play." 

"Then  what  on  earth  brought  her  over  to  your  side?" 

"Life." 

335 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

"Life — fiddlesticks !  It  was  life  with  a  good  deal  of  help 
from  Alix  Adare."  She  added,  on  one  occasion:  "Why 
didn't  you  take  that  young  Strangways — frankly,  now?" 

"Because,"  I  smiled,  "I  don't  believe  in  polyandry." 

"But  you're  fond  of  him.  That's  what  beats  me! 
You're  fond  of  one  man  and  you're  marrying  another;  and 
yet—" 

I  don't  know  what  color  I  turned  outwardly,  but  within 
I  was  fire.  It  was  the  fire  of  confusion  and  not  of  indigna- 
tion. I  felt  it  safest  to  let  her  go  on,  hazarding  no  remarks 
of  my  own. 

"And  yet— what?" 

"And  yet  you  don't  seem  like  a  girl  who'd  marry  for 
money — you  really  don't.  That's  one  thing  about  you." 

I  screwed  up  a  wan  smile. 

"Thanks." 

"So  that  I'm  all  in  the  dark.  What  you  can  see  in 
Hugh—" 

"What  I  can  see  in  Hugh  is  the  kindest  of  men.  That's 
a  good  deal  to  say  of  any  one." 

"Well,  I'll  be  hanged  if  I'd  marry  even  the  kindest  of 
men  if  it  was  for  nothing  but  his  kindness." 

The  Jack  Brokenshires  were  jovially  non-committal, 
letting  it  go  at  that.  In  offering  the  necessary  good  wishes 
Jack  contented  himself  with  calling  me  a  sly  one;  while 
Pauline,  who  was  mannish  and  horsey,  wrung  my  hand  till 
she  almost  pulled  it  off,  remarking  that  in  a  family  like  the 
Brokenshires  the  natural  principle  was,  The  more,  the 
merrier.  Acting,  doubtless,  on  a  hint  from  higher  up,  they 
included  Hugh  and  me  in  a  luncheon  to  some  twenty  of 
their  cronies,  whose  shibboleths  I  didn't  understand  and 
among  whom  I  was  lost. 

As  far  as  I  went  into  general  society  it  was  so  unobtru- 

336 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

sively  that  I  might  be  said  not  to  have  gone  at  all.  I  made 
no  sensation  as  the  affianced  bride  of  Hugh  Brokenshire. 
To  the  great  fact  of  my  engagement  few  people  paid  any 
attention,  and  those  who  referred  to  it  did  so  with  the  air 
of  forgetting  it  the  minute  afterward.  It  came  to  me  with 
some  pain  that  in  his  own  circle  Hugh  was  regarded  more 
or  less  as  a  nonentity.  I  was  a  "queer  Canadian."  New- 
port presented  to  me  a  hard,  polished  exterior,  like  a  porce- 
lain wall.  It  was  too  high  to  climb  over  and  it  afforded  no 
nooks  or  crevices  in  which  I  might  find  a  niche.  No  one 
ever  offered  me  the  slightest  hint  of  incivility — or  of  in- 
terest. 

"It's  because  they've  too  much  to  do  and  to  think  of," 
Mrs.  Brokenshire  explained  to  me.  "They  know  too 
many  people  already.  Their  lives  are  too  full.  Money 
means  nothing  to  them,  because  they've  all  got  so  much 
of  it.  Quiet  good  breeding  isn't  striking  enough.  Clever- 
ness they  don't  care  anything  about — and  not  even  for 
scandals  outside  their  own  close  corporation.  All  the 
same" — I  waited  while  she  formulated  her  opinion — 
"all  the  same,  a  great  deal  could  be  done  in  Newport — 
in  New  York — in  Washington — in  America  at  large — if 
we  had  the  right  sort  of  women." 

"And  haven't  you?" 

"No.  Our  women  are — how  shall  I  say? — too  small — 
too  parochial — too  provincial.  They've  no  national  out- 
look; they've  no  authority.  Few  of  them  know  how  to 
use  money  or  to  hold  high  positions.  Our  men  hardly 
ever  turn  to  them  for  advice  on  important  things,  because 
they've  rarely  any  to  give." 

Her  remarks  showed  so  much  more  of  the  reflecting 
spirit  than  I  had  ever  seen  in  her  before,  that  I  was  embold- 
ened to  ask: 

337 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

"Then,  couldn't  you  show  them  how?" 

She  shook  her  head. 

"No;  I'm  an  American,  like  the  rest.  It  isn't  in  me. 
It's  both  personal  and  national.  Cissie  Boscobel  could  do 
it — not  because  she's  clever  or  has  had  experience,  but 
because  the  tradition  is  there.  We've  no  tradition." 

The  tradition  in  Cissie  Boscobel  became  evident  on  a 
day  in  July  when  she  came  to  sit  beside  me  in  the  grounds 
of  the  Casino.  I  had  gone  with  Mrs.  Rossiter,  with  whom 
I  had  been  watching  the  tennis.  When  she  drifted  away 
with  a  group  of  her  friends  I  was  left  alone.  It  was  then 
that  Lady  Cecilia,  in  tennis  things,  with  her  racket  in  her 
hand,  came  across  the  grass  to  me.  She  moved  with  the 
splendid  careless  freedom  of  women  who  pass  their  lives 
outdoors  and  yet  are  trained  to  drawing-rooms. 

She  didn't  go  to  her  point  at  once;  she  was,  in  fact,  a 
mistress  of  the  introductory.  The  visits  she  had  made  and 
the  people  she  had  met  since  our  last  meeting  were  the 
theme  of  her  remarks;  and  now  she  was  staying  with  the 
Burkes.  She  would  remain  with  them  for  a  month,  after 
which  she  had  two  or  three  places  to  go  to  on  Long  Island 
and  in  the  Catskills.  She  would  have  to  be  at  Strath-na- 
Cloid  in  September,  for  the  wedding  of  her  sister  Janet 
and  the  young  man  in  the  Inverness  Rangers,  who  would 
then  have  got  home  from  India.  She  would  be  sorry  to 
leave.  She  adored  America.  Americans  were  such  fun. 
Their  houses  were  so  fresh  and  new.  She  doted  on  the 
multiplicity  of  bathrooms.  It  would  be  so  horrid  to  live 
at  Strath-na-Cloid  or  Dillingham  Hall  after  the  cheeriness 
of  Mrs.  Burke's  or  Mrs.  Rossiter's. 

Screwing  up  her  greenish  cat-like  eyes  till  they  were  no 
more  than  tiny  slits  with  a  laugh  in  them,  she  said,  with 
her  deliriously  incisive  utterance: 

338 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

"So  you've  done  it,  haven't  you?" 

"You  mean  that  Mr.  Brokenshire  has  come  round." 

"You  know,  that  seems  to  me  the  most  wonderful 
thing  I  ever  heard  of !  It's  like  a  miracle,  isn't  it  ?  You've 
hardly  lifted  a  finger — and  yet  here  it  is."  She  leaned  for- 
ward, her  firm  hands  grasping  the  racket  that  lay  across 
her  knees.  "I  want  to  tell  you  how  much  I  admire  you. 
You're  splendid!  You're  not  a  bit  like  a  Colonial,  are 
you?" 

Since  she  meant  well,  I  mastered  my  indignation. 

"Oh  yes,  I  am.  I'm  exactly  like  a  Colonial,  and  very 
proud  of  the  fact." 

' '  Fancy !    And  are  all  Colonials  like  you  ?" 

"All  that  aren't  a  great  deal  cleverer  and  better." 

" Fancy!"  she  breathed  again.  "  I  must  tell  them  when 
I  go  home.  They  don't  know  it,  you  know."  She  added, 
in  a  slight  change  of  key:  "I'm  so  glad  Hugh  is  going  to 
have  a  wife  like  you." 

It  was  on  my  tongue  to  say,  "He'd  be  much  better  off 
with  a  wife  like  you  " ;  but  I  made  it : 

"What  do  you  think  it  will  do  for  him?" 

"It  will  bring  him  out.  Hugh  is  splendid  in  his  way — 
just  as  you  are — only  he  needs  bringing  out,  don't  you 
think?" 

"  He  hasn't  needed  bringing  out  in  the  last  ten  months," 
I  declared,  with  some  emphasis.  "See  what  he's  done — " 

"And  yet  he  didn't  pull  it  off,  did  he?  You  managed 
that.  You'll  manage  a  lot  of  other  things  for  him,  too. 
I  must  go  back  to  the  others,"  she  continued,  getting  up. 
"They're  waiting  for  me  to  make  up  the  set.  But  I 
wanted  to  tell  you  I'm — I'm  glad — without — without  any 
— any  reserves." 

I  think  there  were  tears  in  her  narrow  eyes,  as  I  know 
339 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

there  were  in  my  own;  but  she  beat  such  a  hasty  retreat 
that  I  could  not  be  very  sure  of  it. 

Mildred  Brokenshire  was  a  surprise  to  me.  I  had  hardly 
ever  seen  her  till  she  sent  for  me  in  order  to  talk  about 
Hugh.  I  found  her  lying  on  a  couch  in  a  dim  corner  of  her 
big,  massively  furnished  room,  her  face  no  more  than  a 
white  pain-pinched  spot  in  the  obscurity.  After  having 
kissed  me  she  made  me  sit  at  a  distance,  nominally  to 
get  the  breeze  through  an  open  window,  but  really  that  I 
might  not  have  to  look  at  her. 

In  an  unnaturally  hollow,  tragic  voice  she  said  it  was  a 
pleasure  to  her  that  Hugh  should  have  got  at  last  the  wom- 
an he  loved,  especially  after  having  made  such  a  fight  for 
her.  Though  she  didn't  know  me,  she  was  sure  I  had  fine 
qualities ;  otherwise  Hugh  would  not  have  cared  for  me  as 
he  did.  He  was  a  dear  boy,  and  a  good  wife  could  make 
much  of  him.  He  lacked  initiative  in  the  way  that  was 
unfortunately  common  among  rich  men's  sons,  especially 
in  America;  but  the  past  winter  had  shown  that  he  was 
not  deficient  in  doggedness.  She  wondered  if  I  loved  him 
as  much  as  he  loved  me. 

There  was  that  in  this  suffering  woman,  so  far  with- 
drawn from  our  struggles  in  the  world  outside,  which 
prompted  me  to  be  as  truthful  as  the  circumstances  ren- 
dered possible. 

"I  love  him  enough,  dear  Miss  Brokenshire,"  I  said, 
with  some  emotion,  "to  be  eager  to  give  my  life  to  the 
object  of  making  him  happy." 

She  accepted  this  in  silence.  At  least  it  was  silence  for 
a  time,  after  which  she  said,  in  measured,  organ-like  tones : 

"We  can't  make  other  people  happy,  you  know.  We 
can  only  do  our  duty — and  let  their  happiness  take  care 
of  itself.  They  must  make  themselves  happy!  It's  a 

34o 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

mistake  for  any  of  us  to  feel  responsible  for  more  than 
doing  right.  When  we  do  right  other  people  must  make 
the  best  they  can  of  it." 

"I  believe  that,  too,"  I  responded,  earnestly — "only 
that  it's  sometimes  so  hard  to  tell  what  is  right." 

There  was  again  an  interval  of  silence.  The  voice,  when 
it  came  out  of  the  dimness,  might  have  been  that  of  the 
Pythian  virgin  oracle.  The  utterances  I  give  were  not 
delivered  consecutively,  but  in  answer  to  questions  and 
observations  of  my  own. 

"Right,  on  the  whole,  is  what  we've  been  impelled  to  do 
when  we've  been  conscientiously  seeking  the  best  way. 
.  .  .  Forces  catch  us,  often  contradictory  and  bewildering 
forces,  and  carry  us  to  a  certain  act,  or  to  a  certain  line  of 
action.  Very  well,  then;  be  satisfied.  Don't  go  back. 
Don't  torture  yourself  with  questionings.  Don't  dig  up 
what  has  already  been  done.  That's  done!  Nothing 
can  undo  it.  Accept  it  as  it  is.  If  there's  a  wrong  or  a 
mistake  in  it  life  will  take  care  of  it.  ...  Life  is  not  a 
blind  impulse,  working  blindly.  It's  a  beneficent,  rectify- 
ing power.  It's  dynamic.  It's  a  perpetual  unfolding. 
It's  a  fire  that  utilizes  as  fuel  everything  that's  cast  into 
it.  .  .  ." 

And  yet  when  I  kissed  her  to  say  good-by  I  got  the  im- 
pression that  she  didn't  like  me  or  that  she  didn't  trust  me. 
I  was  not  always  liked,  but  I  was  generally  trusted.  The 
idea  that  this  Brokenshire  seeress,  this  suffering  priestess 
whose  whole  life  was  to  lie  on  a  couch  and  think,  and  think, 
and  think,  had  reserves  in  her  consciousness  on  my  account 
was  painful.  I  said  so  to  Hugh  that  evening. 

"Oh,  you  mustn't  take  Mildred's  gassing  too  seriously," 
he  advised.  "  Gets  a  lot  of  ideas  in  her  heacf;  but — poor 
thing — what  else  can  she  do?  Since  she  doesn't  know 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

anything  about  real  life,  she  just  spins  theories  on  the 
subject.  Whatever  you  want  to  know,  little  Alix,  I'll 
tell  you." 

"Thanks,"  I  said,  dryly,  explaining  the  shiver  which  ran 
through  me  by  the  fact  that  we  were  sitting  in  the  loggia, 
in  the  open  air. 

"Then  we'll  go  in." 

"No,  no!"  I  protested.  "I  like  it  much  better  out 
here." 

But  he  was  on  his  feet. 

"We'll  go  in.  I  can't  have  my  sweet  little  Alix  taking 
cold.  I'm  here  to  protect  her.  She  must  do  what  I  tell 
her.  We'll  go  in." 

And  we  went  in.  It  was  one  of  the  things  I  was  learn- 
ing, that  my  kind  Hugh  would  kill  me  with  kindness.  It 
was  part  of  his  way  of  taking  possession.  If  he  could  help 
it  he  wouldn't  leave  me  for  an  hour  unwatched;  nor  would 
he  let  me  lift  a  hand. 

"There  are  servants  to  do  that,"  he  would  say.  "It's 
one  of  the  things  little  Alix  will  have  to  get  accustomed 
to." 

"I  can't  get  accustomed  to  doing  nothing,  Hugh." 

"You'll  have  plenty  to  do  in  having  a  good  time." 

"Oh,  but  I  must  have  more  than  that  in  life." 

"In  your  old  life,  perhaps;  but  everything  is  to  be  dif- 
ferent now.  Don't  be  afraid,  little  Alix;  you'll  learn." 

"Learn  what?  It  seems  to  me  you're  taking  the  pos- 
sibility of  ever  learning  anything  away." 

This  was  a  joke.     Over  it  he  laughed  heartily. 

"You  won't  know  yourself,  little  Alix,  when  I've  had 
you  for  a  year." 

Mr.  Brokenshire's  compliments  to  me  were  in  a  similar 
vein.  He  seemed  always  to  be  in  search  of  the  superior 

342 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

position  he  had  lost  on  the  day  we  sat  looking  up  into  the 
hillside  wood.  His  dear  Alexandra  must  never  forget  her 
social  inexperience.  In  being  raised  to  a  higher  level  I  was 
to  watch  the  manners  of  those  about  me.  I  was  to  copy 
them,  as  people  learning  French  or  Italian  try  to  catch  an 
accent  which  is  not  that  of  their  mother  tongue.  They 
probably  do  it  badly;  but  that  is  better  than  not  doing 
it  at  all.  I  could  never  be  an  Ethel  Rossiter  or  a  Daisy 
Burke,  but  I  could  become  an  imitation.  Imitations  being 
to  the  house  of  Brokenshire  like  paste  diamonds  or  fish- 
glue  pearls,  my  gratitude  for  the  effort  they  made  in  accept- 
ing me  had  to  be  the  more  humble. 

And  yet  on  occasions  I  tried  to  get  justice  for  myself. 

"I'm  not  altogether  without  knowledge  of  the  world, 
Mr.  Brokenshire,"  I  said,  after  one  of  his  kindly,  conde- 
scending lectures.  "  Not  only  in  Canada,  but  in  England, 
and  to  some  slight  extent  abroad,  I've  had  opportuni- 
ties— " 

"Yes,  yes;  but  this  is  different.  You've  had  op- 
portunities, as  you  say.  But  there  you  were  looking 
on  from  the  outside,  while  here  you'll  be  living  from 
within." 

"Oh,  but  I  wasn't  looking  on  from  the  outside — " 

His  hand  went  up ;  his  pitiful  crooked  smile  was  meant 
to  express  tolerance.  "You'll  pardon  me,  my  dear;  but 
we  gain  nothing  by  discussing  that  point.  You'll  see 
it  yourself  when  you've  been  one  of  us  a  little  longer. 
Meantime,  if  you  watch  the  women  about  you  and  study 
them—" 

We  left  it  there.     I  always  left  it  there.     But  I  did  begin 

to  see  that  there  was  a  difference  between  me  and  the 

women  whom  Hugh  and  his  father  wished  me  to  take  as 

my  models.     I  had  hitherto  not  observed  this  variation  in 

23  343 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

type — I  might  possibly  call  it  this  distinction  between 
national  ideals — during  my  two  years  under  the  Stars  and 
Stripes;  and  I  find  a  difficulty  in  expressing  it,  for  the  rea- 
son that  to  anything  I  say  so  many  exceptions  can  be 
made.  The  immense  class  of  wage-earning  women  would 
be  exceptions;  mothers  and  housekeepers  would  again  be 
exceptions;  exceptions  would  be  all  women  engaged  in 
political  or  social  or  philanthropic  service  to  the  country; 
but  when  this  allowance  has  been  made  there  still  remain 
a  multitude  of  American  women  economically  independ- 
ent, satisfied  to  be  an  incubus  on  the  land.  They  dress, 
they  entertain,  they  go  to  entertainments,  they  live  grace- 
fully. When  they  can't  help  it  they  bear  children;  but 
they  bear  as  few  as  possible.  Otherwise  they  are  not 
much  more  than  pleasing  forms  of  vegetation,  idle  of 
body  and  mind;  and  the  American  man,  as  a  rule,  loves 
to  have  it  so. 

"The  American  man,"  Mrs.  Rossiter  had  said  to  me 
once,  "likes  figurines."  Hugh  was  a  rebel  to  that  doc- 
trine, she  had  added  then;  but  his  rebellion  had  been  short- 
lived. He  had  come  back  to  the  standard  of  his  country- 
men. He  had  chosen  me,  he  used  to  say,  because  I  was  a 
woman  of  whom  a  Socialist  might  make  his  star;  and  now 
I  was  to  be  put  in  a  vitrine. 

Canadian  women,  as  a  class,  are  not  made  for  the  vitrine. 
Their  instinct  is  to  be  workers  in  the  world  and  mates  for 
men.  They  have  no  very  high  opinion  of  their  privileges; 
they  are  not  self-analytical.  They  rarely  think  of  them- 
selves as  the  birds  and  flowers  of  the  human  race,  or  as 
other  than  creatures  to  put  their  shoulders  to  the  wheel 
in  the  ways  of  which  God  made  them  mistresses.  Not 
ashamed  to  know  how  to  bake  and  brew  aad  mend  and  sew, 
they  rule  the  house  with  a  practically  French  economy. 

344 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

I  was  brought  up  in  that  way;  not  ignorant  of  books  or  of 
social  amenities,  but  with  the  assumption  that  I  was  in  this 
world  to  contribute  something  to  it  by  my  usefulness.  I 
hadn't  contributed  much,  Heaven  only  knows;  but  the 
impulse  to  work  was  instinctive. 

And  as  Hugh's  wife  I  began  to  see  that  I  should  be  lifted 
high  and  dry  into  a  sphere  where  there  was  nothing  to  be 
done.  I  should  dress  and  I  should  amuse  myself;  I 
should  amuse  myself  and  I  should  dress.  It  was  all  Mrs. 
Rossiter  did;  it  was  all  Mrs.  Brokenshire  did — except  that 
to  her,  poor  soul,  amusement  had  become  but  gall  and  bit- 
terness. Still,  with  the  large  exceptions  which  I  cheerfully 
concede,  it  was  the  American  ideal,  so  far  as  I  could  get 
hold  of  it;  and  I  began  to  feel  that,  in  the  long  run,  it 
would  stifle  me. 

It  was  a  kind  of  feminine  Nirvana.  It  offered  me  noth- 
ing to  strive  for,  nothing  to  wait  for  in  hope,  nothing 
to  win  gloriously.  The  wife  of  Larry  Strangways,  who- 
ever she  turned  out  to  be,  would  have  a  goal  before  her, 
high  up  and  far  ahead,  with  the  incentive  of  lifelong 
striving.  Hugh  Brokenshire's  wife  would  have  everything 
done  for  her,  as  it  was  done  for  Mildred.  Like  Mildred 
she  would  have  nothing  to  do  but  think  and  think  and 
think — or  train  herself  to  not  thinking  at  all.  Little  by 
little  I  saw  myself  being  steered  toward  this  fate;  and, 
like  St.  Peter,  when  I  thought  thereon  I  wept. 

I  had  taken  to  weeping  all  alone  in  my  pretty  room, 
which  looked  out  on  shrubberies  and  gardens.  I  should 
probably  have  shrubberies  and  gardens  like  them  some 
day;  so  that  weeping  was  the  more  foolish.  Every  one 
considered  me  fortunate.  All  my  Canadian  and  English 
friends  spoke  of  me  as  a  lucky  girl,  and,  in  their  downright, 
practical  way,  said  I  was  "doing  very  well  for  myself." 

345 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

Of  course  I  was — which  made  it  criminal  on  my  part 
not  to  take  the  Brokenshire  view  of  things  with  equanim- 
ity. I  tried  to.  I  bent  my  will  to  it.  I  bent  my  spirit  to 
it.  In  the  end  I  might  have  succeeded  if  the  heavenly 
trumpet  had  not  sounded  again,  with  another  blast  from 
Sarajevo. 


CHAPTER  XXII 

AS  I  have  already  said,  I  had  almost  forgotten  Sarajevo. 
The  illustrated  papers  had  shown  us  a  large  coffin 
raised  high  and  a  small  one  set  low,  telling  us  of  unequal 
rank,  even  at  the  Great  White  Throne.  I  had  a  thought 
for  that  from  time  to  time;  but  otherwise  Franz  Ferdi- 
nand and  Sophie  Chotek  were  less  to  me  than  Caesar  or 
Napoleon. 

But  toward  the  end  of  July  there  was  a  sudden  rumbling. 
It  was  like  that  first  disquieting  low  note  of  the  "Rhein- 
gold,"  rising  from  elemental  depths,  presaging  love  and 
adventure  and  war  and  death  and  defeat  and  triumph, 
and  the  end  of  the  old  gods  and  the  burning  of  their  Val- 
halla. I  cannot  say  that  any  of  us  knew  its  significance; 
but  it  was  arresting. 

"What  does  it  mean?" 

I  think  Cissie  Boscobel  was  the  first  to  ask  me  that 
question,  to  which  I  could  only  reply  by  asking  it  in  my 
own  turn.  What  did  it  mean — this  ultimatum  from 
Vienna  to  Belgrade?  Did  it  mean  anything?  Could 
it  possibly  mean  what  dinner-table  diplomats  hinted  at 
between  a  laugh  and  a  look  of  terror? 

Hugh  and  I  were  descending  the  Rossiter  lawn  on  a 
bright  afternoon  near  the  end  of  July.  Cissie,  who  was 
passing  with  some  of  the  Burkes,  ran  over  the  grass  tow- 
ard us.  Had  we  seen  the  papers?  Had  we  read  the 
Austrian  note  ?  Could  we  make  anything  out  of  it  ? 

347 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

I  recall  her  as  an  extraordinarily  vivid  picture  against 
the  background  of  blue  sea,  in  white,  with  a  green-silk 
tunic  embroidered  in  peacock's  feathers,  with  long  jade 
ear-rings  and  big  jade  beads,  and  a  jade-colored  plume  in  a 
black-lace  hat  cocked  on  her  flaming  hair  as  she  alone 
knew  how  to  cock  it.  I  merely  want  to  point  out  here 
that  to  Cissie  Boscobel  and  me  the  questions  she  asked 
already  possessed  a  measure  of  life-and-death  importance; 
while  to  Hugh  they  had  none  at  all. 

I  remember  him  as  he  stood  aloof  from  us,  strong  and 
stocky  and  summer-like  in  his  white  flannels,  a  type  of  that 
safe  and  separated  America  which  could  afford  to  look  on 
at  Old  World  tragedies  and  feel  them  of  no  personal  con- 
cern. To  him  Cissie  Boscobel  and  I,  with  anxiety  in  our 
eyes  and  something  worse  already  clutching  at  our  hearts, 
were  but  two  girls  talking  of  things  they  didn't  under- 
stand and  of  no  great  interest,  anyway. 

"Come  along,  little  Alix!"  he  interrupted,  gaily. 
"  Cissie  will  excuse  us.  The  madam  is  waiting  to  motor  us 
over  to  South  Portsmouth,  and  I  don't  want  to  keep  her 
waiting.  You  know,"  he  explained,  proudly,  "she  thinks 
this  little  girl  is  a  peach !" 

Cissie  ran  back  to  join  the  Burkes  and  we  continued  our 
way  along  the  Cliff  Walk  to  Mr.  Brokenshire's.  Hugh  had 
come  for  me  in  order  that  we  might  have  the  stroll  to- 
gether. 

I  gave  him  my  view  of  the  situation  as  we  went  along, 
though  in  it  there  was  nothing  original. 

"You  see,  if  Austria  attacks  Serbia,  then  Russia  must 
attack  Austria;  in  which  case  Germany  will  attack  Russia, 
and  France  will  attack  Germany.  Then  England  will 
certainly  have  to  pitch  in." 

' '  But  we  won't.     We  shall  be  out  of  it. " 
348 


THE   HIGH    HEART 

The  complacency  of  his  tone  nettled  me. 

"But  I  sha'n't  be  out  of  it,  Hugh." 

He  laughed. 

"You?    What  could  you  do,  little  lightweight?" 

"  I  don't  know;  but  whatever  it  was  I  should  want  to  be 
doing  it." 

This  joke  might  have  been  characterized  as  a  screamer. 
He  threw  back  his  head  with  a  loud  guffaw. 

"Well,  of  all  the  little  spitfires!"  Catching  me  by  the 
arm,  he  hugged  me  to  him,  as  we  were  hidden  in  a  rocky 
nook  of  the  path.  "Why,  you're  a  regular  Amazon!  A 
soldier  in  your  way  would  be  no  more  than  a  ninepin  in  a 
bowling-alley." 

I  didn't  enter  into  the  spirit  of  this  pleasantry.  On  the 
contrary,  I  concealed  my  anger  in  endeavoring  to  speak 
with  dignity. 

"And,  what's  more,  Hugh,  than  not  being  out  of  it  my- 
self, I  don't  see  how  I  could  marry  a  man  who  was.  Of 
course,  no  such  war  will  come  to  pass.  It  couldn't !  The 
world  has  gone  beyond  that  sort  of  madness.  We  know 
too  well  the  advantages  of  peace.  But  if  it  should  break 
out—" 

"I'll  buy  you  a  popgun  with  the  very  first  shot  that's 
fired." 

But  in  August,  when  the  impossible  had  happened, 
when  Germany  had  invaded  Belgium,  and  France  had 
moved  to  her  eastern  frontier,  and  Russia  was  pouring 
into  Prussia,  and  English  troops  were  on  foreign  continen- 
tal soil  for  the  first  time  in  fifty  years,  Hugh's  indifference 
grew  painful.  He  was  perhaps  not  more  indifferent  than 
any  one  else  with  whom  I  was  thrown,  but  to  me  he  seemed 
so  because  he  was  so  near  me.  He  read  the  papers;  he 
took  a  sporting  interest  in  the  daily  events;  but  it  re- 

349 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

sembled — to  my  mind  at  least — the  interest  of  an  eigh- 
teenth-century farmer's  lad  excited  at  a  cockfight.  It  was 
somewhat  in  the  spirit  of  "Go  it,  old  boy!"  to  each  side 
indifferently. 

If  he  took  sides  at  all  it  was  rather  on  that  to  which 
Cissie  Boscobel  and  I  were  nationally  opposed;  but  this, 
we  agreed,  was  to  tease  us.  So  far  as  opinions  of  his  own 
were  concerned,  he  was  neutral.  He  meant  by  that  that 
he  didn't  care  a  jot  who  lost  or  who  won,  so  long  as  America 
was  out  of  the  fray  and  could  eat  its  bread  in  safety. 

"There  are  more  important  things  than  safety,"  I  said 
to  him,  scornfully,  one  day. 

"  Such  as— " 

But  when  I  gave  him  what  seemed  to  me  the  truisms 
of  life  he  was  contented  to  laugh  in  my  face. 

Cissie  Boscobel  was  more  patient  with  him  than  I  was. 
I  have  always  admired  in  the  English  that  splendid  toler- 
ance which  allows  to  others  the  same  liberty  of  thinking 
they  claim  for  themselves;  but  in  this  instance  I  had  none 
of  it.  Hugh  was  too  much  a  part  of  myself.  When  he 
said,  as  he  was  fond  of  saying,  "If  Germany  gets  at  poor 
degenerate  old  England  she'll  crumple  her  up,"  Lady 
Cissie  could  fling  him  a  pitying,  confident  smile,  with 
no  venom  in  it  whatever,  while  I  became  bitter  or 
furious. 

Fortunately,  Mr.  Brokenshire  was  called  to  New  York 
on  business  connected  with  the  war,  so  that  his  dear 
Alexandra  was  delivered  for  a  while  from  his  daily  con- 
descensions. Though  Hugh  didn't  say  so  in  actual  words, 
I  inferred  that  the  struggle  would  further  enrich  the  house 
of  Meek  &  Brokenshire.  Of  the  vast  sums  it  would  handle 
a  commission  would  stick  to  its  fingers,  and  if  the  business 
grew  too  heavy  for  the  usual  staff  to  deal  with  Hugh's 

350 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

own  energies  were  to  be  called  into  play.  His  father,  he 
told  me,  had  said  so.  It  would  be  an  eye-opener  to  Cousin 
Andrew  Brew,  he  crowed,  to  see  him  helping  to  finance  the 
European  War  within  a  year  after  that  slow-witted  nut 
had  had  the  hardihood  to  refuse  him! 

In  the  Brokenshire  villa  the  animation  was  comparable 
to  a  suppressed  fever.  Mr.  Brokenshire  came  back  as 
often  as  he  could.  Thereupon  there  followed  whispered 
conferences  between  him  and  Jack,  between  him  and  Jim 
Rossiter,  between  him  and  kindred  magnates,  between 
three  and  four  and  six  and  eight  of  them  together,  with  a 
ceaseless  stream  of  telegrams,  of  the  purport  of  which  we 
women  knew  nothing.  We  gave  dinners  and  lunches,  and 
bathed  at  Bailey's,  and  played  tennis  at  the  Casino,  and 
lived  in  our  own  little  lady-like  Paradise,  shut  out  from  the 
interests  convulsing  the  world.  Knitting  had  not  yet 
begun.  The  Red  Cross  had  barely  issued  its  appeals. 
America,  with  the  speed  of  the  Franco-Prussian  War  in 
mind,  was  still  under  the  impression  that  it  could  hardly 
give  its  philanthropic  aid  before  the  need  for  it  would  be 
over. 

Of  all  our  little  coterie  Lady  Cissie  and  I  alone  perhaps 
took  the  sense  of  things  to  heart.  Even  with  us,  it  was  the 
heart  that  acted  rather  than  the  intelligence.  So  far  as 
intelligence  went,  we  were  convinced  that,  once  Great 
Britain  lifted  her  hand,  all  hostile  nations  would  tremble. 
That  was  a  matter  of  course.  It  amazed  us  that  people 
round  us  should  talk  of  our  enemy's  efficiency.  The  word 
was  just  coming  into  use,  always  with  the  implication  that 
the  English  were  inefficient  and  unprepared. 

That  would  have  made  us  laugh  if  those  who  said  such 
things  hadn't  said  them  like  Hugh,  with  detached,  undis- 
turbed deliberation,  as  a  matter  that  was  nothing  to  them. 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

Many  of  them  hoped,  and  hoped  ardently,  that  the  side 
represented  by  England,  Russia,  and  France  would  be 
victorious;  but  if  it  wasn't,  America  would  still  be  able  to 
sit  down  to  eat  and  drink,  and  rise  up  to  play,  as  we  were 
doing  at  the  moment,  while  nothing  could  shake  her  from 
her  ease. 

Owing  to  our  kinship  in  sentiment,  Lady  Cissie  and  I 
drew  closer  together.  We  gave  each  other  bits  of  informa- 
tion in  which  no  one  else  would  have  had  an  interest.  She 
was  getting  letters  from  England;  I  from  England  and 
Canada.  Her  brother  Leatherhead  had  been  ordered  to 
France  with  his  regiment — was  probably  there.  Her 
brother  Rowan,  who  had  been  at  Sandhurst,  had  got  his 
commission.  The  young  man  her  sister  Janet  was  engaged 
to  had  sailed  with  the  Rangers  for  Marseilles  and  would  go 
at  once  to  the  front  instead  of  coming  home.  If  he  could 
get  leave  the  young  couple  would  be  married  hastily,  after 
which  he  would  return  to  his  duty.  My  sister  Louise 
wrote  that  her  husband's  ship  was  in  the  North  Sea  and 
that  her  news  of  him  was  meager.  The  husband  of  my 
sister  Victoria,  who  had  had  a  staff  appointment  at  Gib- 
raltar, had  been  ordered  to  rejoin  his  regiment;  and  he, 
too,  would  soon  be  in  Belgium. 

From  Canada  I  heard  of  that  impulse  toward  recruiting 
which  was  thrilling  the  land  from  the  Island  of  Vancouver, 
in  the  Pacific,  to  that  of  Cape  Breton,  in  the  Atlantic, 
and  in  which  the  multitudes  were  of  one  heart  and  one 
soul.  Men  came  from  farms,  factories,  and  fisheries;  they 
came  from  banks  and  shops  and  mines.  They  tramped 
hundreds  of  miles,  from  the  Yukon,  from  Ungava,  and  from 
Hudson  Bay.  They  arrived  in  troops  or  singly,  impelled 
by  nothing  but  that  love  which  passes  the  love  of  women — 
the  love  of  race,  the  love  of  country,  the  love  of  honor,  the 

352 


THE   HIGH    HEART 

love  of  something  vast  and  intangible  and  inexplicable, 
that  comes  as  near  as  possible  to  that  love  of  man  which  is 
almost  the  love  of  God. 

I  can  proudly  say  that  among  my  countrymen  it  was 
this,  and  it  was  nothing  short  of  this.  They  were  as  far 
from  the  fray  as  their  neighbors  to  the  south,  and  as  safe. 
Belgium  and  Serbia  meant  less  to  most  of  them  than  to  the 
people  of  San  Francisco,  Chicago,  and  New  York;  but  a 
great  cause,  almost  indefinable  to  thought,  meant  every- 
thing. To  that  cause  they  gave  themselves — not  sparing- 
ly or  grudgingly,  but  like  Araunah  the  Jebusite  to  David 
the  son  of  Jesse,  "as  a  king  gives  unto  a  king." 

Men  are  wonderful  to  me — all  men  of  all  races.  They 
face  hardship  so  cheerfully  and  dangers  so  gaily,  and 
death  so  serenely.  This  is  true  of  men  not  only  in  war,  but 
in  peace — of  men  not  only  as  saints,  but  as  sinners.  And 
among  men  it  seems  to  me  that  our  Colonial  men  are  in  the 
first  rank  of  the  manliest.  Frenchman,  German,  Austrian, 
Italian,  Russian,  Englishman,  and  Turk  had  each  some 
visible  end  to  gain.  They  couldn't  help  going.  They 
couldn't  help  fighting.  Our  men  had  nothing  to  gain  that 
mortal  eyes  could  see.  They  have  endured,  "as  seeing 
Him  who  is  invisible." 

They  have  come  from  the  far  ends  of  the  earth,  and  are 
still  coming — turning  their  backs  on  families  and  business 
and  pleasure  and  profit  and  hope.  They  have  counted 
the  world  well  lost  for  love — for  a  true  love — a  man's  love 
— a  redemptive  love  if  ever  there  was  one;  for  "greater 
love  hath  no  man  than  this,  that  a  man  lay  down  his  life 
for  his  friends." 

But  when,  with  my  heart  flaming,  I  spoke  of  this  to 
Lady  Cecilia,  she  was  cold.  "Fancy!"  was  the  only  com- 
ment she  ever  made  on  the  subject.  Toward  my  own  in- 

353 


THE   HIGH   HEART 

tensity  of  feeling  she  was  courteous;  but  she  plainly  felt 
that  in  a  war  in  which  the  honors  would  be  to  the  profes- 
sional soldier,  and  to  the  English  professional  soldier  first 
of  all,  Colonials  were  out  of  place.  It  was  somewhat  pre- 
sumptuous of  them  to  volunteer. 

She  was  a  splendid  character — with  British  limitations. 
Among  those  limitations  her  attitude  toward  Colonials 
was,  as  I  saw  things,  the  first.  She  rarely  spoke  of  Cana- 
dians or  Australians;  it  was  always  of  Colonials,  with  a 
delicately  disdainful  accent  on  the  word  impossible  to 
transcribe.  Geography,  either  physical  or  ethnic,  was  no 
more  her  strong  point  than  it  is  that  of  other  women;  and 
I  think  she  took  Colonials  to  be  a  kind  of  race  of  aborig- 
ines, like  the  Maoris  or  the  Hottentots — only  that  by  some 
freak  of  nature  they  were  white.  So,  whenever  my  heart 
was  so  hot  that  I  could  contain  myself  no  longer,  and  I 
poured  out  my  foolish  tales  of  the  big  things  we  hoped  to  do 
for  the  empire  and  the  world,  the  dear  thing  would  merely 
utter  her  dazed,  "  Fancy!"  and  strike  me  dumb. 

And  it  all  threw  me  back  on  the  thought  of  Larry 
Strangways.  Reader,  if  you  suppose  that  I  had  forgotten 
him  you  are  making  a  mistake.  Everything  made  my 
heart  cry  out  for  him — Hugh's  inanity;  his  father's  lum- 
bering dignity;  Mildred's  sepulchral  apothegms,  which 
were  deeper  than  I  could  fathom  and  higher  than  I  could 
scale;  Cissie  Boscobel's  stolid  scorn  of  my  country;  and 
Newport's  whole  attitude  of  taking  no  notice  of  me  or 
mine.  Whenever  I  had  minutes  of  rebellion  or  stress  it 
was  on  Larry  Strangways  I  called,  with  an  agonized  appeal 
to  him  to  come  to  me.  It  was  a  purely  rhetorical  appeal, 
let  me  say  in  passing.  As  it  would  never  reach  him,  he 
could  not  respond  to  it;  but  it  relieved  my  repressed 
emotions  to  send  it  out  on  the  wings  of  the  spirit.  It  was 

354 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

the  only  vehicle  I  could  trust;  and  even  that  betrayed  me 
— for  he  came. 

He  came  one  hot  afternoon  about  the  2oth  of  August. 
His  card  was  brought  to  me  by  the  rosebud  Thomas 
as  I  was  taking  a  siesta  up-stairs. 

"Tell  Mr.  Strangways  I  shall  come  down  at  once,"  I 
said  to  my  footman  knight;  but  after  he  had  gone  I  sat 
still. 

I  sat  still  to  estimate  my  strength.  If  Larry  Strangways 
made  such  an  appeal  to  me  as  I  had  made  to  him,  should 
I  have  the  will-power  to  resist  him?  I  could  only  reply 
that  I  must  have  it!  There  was  no  other  way.  When 
Hugh  had  been  so  true  to  me  it  was  impossible  to  be  other 
than  true  to  him.  It  was  no  longer  a  question  of  love, 
but  of  right ;  and  I  couldn't  forsake  my  maxim. 

Nevertheless,  when  I  threw  off  my  dressing-gown  in- 
stinct compelled  me  to  dress  at  my  prettiest.  To  be  sure, 
my  prettiest  was  only  a  flowered  muslin  and  a  Leghorn 
hat,  in  which  I  resembled  the  vicar's  daughter  in  a  Royal 
Academy  picture;  but  if  I  was  never  to  see  Larry  Strang- 
ways again  I  wanted  the  vision  in  his  heart  to  be  the  most 
decent  possible.  As  I  dressed  I  owned  to  myself  that  I 
loved  him.  I  had  never  done  so  before,  because  I  had 
never  known  it — or  rather,  I  had  known  it  from  that  eve- 
ning on  the  train  when  I  had  seen  nothing  but  his  travel- 
ing-cap; only  I  had  strangled  the  knowledge  in  my  heart. 
I  meant  to  strangle  it  again.  I  should  strangle  it  the 
minute  I  went  down-stairs.  But  for  this  little  interval, 
just  while  I  was  fastening  my  gown  and  pinning  on  my 
hat,  it  seemed  to  me  of  no  great  harm  to  let  the  unfortu- 
nate passion  come  out  for  a  breath  in  the  sunlight. 

And  yet,  after  having  rehearsed  all  the  romantic  speeches 
I  should  make  in  giving  him  up  forever,  he  never  men- 

355 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

tioned  love  to  me  at  all.  On  the  contrary,  he  had  on  that 
gleaming  smile  which,  from  the  beginning  of  our  acquaint- 
ance, was  like  the  flash  of  a  sword  held  up  between  him  and 
me.  When  he  came  forward  from  a  corner  of  the  long, 
dim  drawing-room  all  the  embarrassment  was  on  my  side. 

"  I  suppose  you  wonder  what  brings  me,"  were  the  words 
he  uttered  when  shaking  hands. 

I  tried  to  murmur  politely  that,  whatever  it  was,  I  was 
glad  to  see  him — only  the  words  refused  to  form  them- 
selves. 

"Can't  we  go  out?"  he  asked,  as  I  cast  about  me  for 
chairs.  "It's  so  stuffy  in  here. ' ' 

I  led  the  way  through  the  hall,  picking  up  a  rose-colored 
parasol  of  Mrs.  Rossiter's  as  we  passed  the  umbrella-stand. 

"How  much  money  have  you  got?"  he  asked,  abruptly, 
as  soon  as  we  were  on  the  terrace. 

I  made  an  effort  to  gather  my  wits  from  the  far  fields 
into  which  they  had  wandered. 

"  Do  you  mean  in  ready  cash?  Or  how  much  do  I  own 
in  all?" 

"How  much  in  all?" 

I  told  him — just  a  few  thousand  dollars,  the  wreckage 
of  what  my  father  had  left.  My  total  income,  apart  from 
what  I  earned,  was  about  four  hundred  dollars  a  year. 

"I  want  it,"  he  said,  as  we  descended  the  steps  to  the 
lower  terrace.  ' '  How  soon  could  you  let  me  have  it  ?" 

I  made  the  reckoning  as  we  went  dawn  the  lawn  toward 
the  sea.  I  should  have  to  write  to  my  uncle,  who  would 
sell  my  few  bonds  and  forward  me  the  proceeds.  Mr. 
Strangways  himself  said  that  would  take  a  week. 

"  I'm  going  to  make  a  small  fortune  for  you,"  he  laughed, 
in  explanation.  "All  the  nations  of  the  earth  are  begin- 
ning to  send  to  us  for  munitions,  and  Stacy  Grainger  is 

356 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

right  on  the  spot  with  the  goods.  There'll  be  a  demand 
for  munitions  for  years  to  come — " 

"Oh,  not  for  years  to  come!"  I  exclaimed.  "Only  till 
the  end  of  the  war." 

" 'But  the  end  is  not  by  and  by, '"  he  quoted  from  the 
Bible.  " It's  a  long  way  off  from  by  and  by — believe  me! 
We're  up  against  the  struggle  mankind  has  been  getting 
ready  for  ever  since  it's  had  a  history.  I  don't  want  just 
to  make  money  out  of  it;  but,  since  money's  to  be  made — 
since  we  can't  help  making  it — I  want  you  to  be  in  on  it." 

I  didn't  thank  him,  because  I  had  something  else  on 
my  mind. 

"Perhaps  you  don't  know  that  I'm  engaged  to  Hugh 
Brokenshire.  We're  to  be  married  before  we  move  back  to 
New  York." 

"Yes,  I  do  know  it.  That's  the  reason  I'm  suggesting 
this.  You'll  want  some  money  of  your  own,  in  order  to 
feel  independent.  If  you  don't  have  it  the  Brokenshire 
money  will  break  you  down." 

I  don't  know  what  I  said,  or  whether  I  was  able  to 
say  anything.  There  was  something  in  this  practical 
care-taking  interest  that  moved  me  more  than  any  love 
declaration  he  could  have  made.  He  was  renouncing 
me  in  everything  but  his  protection.  That  was  going 
with  me.  That  was  watching  over  me.  There  was 
no  one  to  watch  over  me  in  the  whole  world  with  just 
this  sort  of  devotion. 

I  suppose  we  talked.  We  must  have  said  something  as 
we  descended  the  slope ;  I  must  have  stammered  some  sort 
of  appreciation.  All  I  can  clearly  remember  is  that,  as 
we  reached  the  steps  going  down  to  the  Cliff  Walk,  Hugh 
was  coming  up. 

I  had  forgotten  that  this  sort  of  encounter  was  possible. 

357 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

I  had  forgotten  Hugh.     When  I  saw  his  innocent,  blank 
face  staring  up  at  us  I  felt  I  was  confronting  my  doom. 

"Well!"  he  ejaculated,  as  though  he  had  caught  us  in 
some  criminal  conspiracy. 

As  it  was  for  me  to  explain,  I  said,  limply : 

"Mr.  Strangways  has  been  good  enough  to  offer  to  make 
some  money  for  me,  Hugh.  Isn't  that  kind  of  him?" 

Hugh  grew  slowly  crimson.  His  voice  shook  with  pas- 
sion. He  came  up  one  step. 

"  Mr.  Strangways  will  be  kinder  still  in  minding  his  own 
business." 

"Oh,  Hugh!" 

"Don't  be  offended,  Mr.  Brokenshire,"  Larry  Strang- 
ways said,  peaceably.  "  I  merely  had  the  opportunity  to 
advise  Miss  Adare  as  to  her  investments — " 

"I  shall  advise  Miss  Adare  as  to  her  investments.  It 
happens  that  she's  engaged  to  me!" 

"But  she's  not  married  to  you.  An  engagement  is  not  a 
marriage;  it's  only  a  preliminary  period  in  which  two  per- 
sons agree  to  consider  whether  or  not  a  marriage  between 
them  would  be  possible.  Since  that's  the  situation  at 
present,  I  thought  it  no  harm  to  tell  Miss  Adare  that  if  she 
puts  her  money  into  some  of  the  new  projects  for  ammu- 
nition that  I  know  about — " 

"And  I'm  sure  she's  not  interested." 

Mr.  Strangways  bowed. 

"That  will  be  for  her  to  decide.  I  understood  her  to 
say — " 

"Whatever  you  understood  her  to  say,  sir,  Miss  Adare 
is  not  interested!  Good  afternoon."  He  nodded  to  me 
to  come  down  the  steps.  "  I  was  just  coming  over  for  you. 
Shall  we  walk  along  together?" 

I  backed  away  from  him  toward  the  stone  balustrade. 

358 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

"But,  Hugh,  I  can't  leave  Mr.  Strangways  like  this. 
He's  come  all  the  way  from  New  York  on  purpose  to — " 

"Then  I  shall  defray  his  expense  and  pay  him  for  his 
time;  but  if  we're  going  at  all,  dear — " 

At  a  sign  of  the  eyes  from  Larry  Strangways  I  mastered 
my  wrath  at  this  insolence,  and  spoke  meekly: 

"I  didn't  know  we  were  going  anywhere  in  particular." 

"And  you'll  excuse  me,  Mr.  Brokenshire,"  our  visitor 
interrupted,  "if  I  say  that  I  can't  be  dismissed  in  this  way 
by  any  one  but  Miss  Adare  herself.  You  must  remember 
she  isn't  your  wife — that  she's  still  a  free  agent.  Perhaps, 
if  I  explain  the  matter  a  little  further — " 

Hugh  put  up  his  hand  in  stately  imitation  of  his  father. 

' '  Please !    There's  no  need  of  that. ' ' 

"Oh,  but  there  is,  Hugh!" 

"You  see,"  Mr.  Strangways  reasoned,  "it's  more  than  a 
question  of  making  money.  We  shall  make  money,  of 
course;  but  that's  only  incidental.  What  I'm  really 
asking  Miss  Adare  to  do  is  to  help  one  of  the  most  glorious 
causes  to  which  mankind  has  ever  given  itself — " 

I  started  toward  him  impulsively. 

"  Oh !    Do  you  feel  like  that  ?" 

"Not  like  that;  that's  all  I  feel.  I  live  it!  I've 
no  other  thought." 

It  was  curious  to  see  how  the  force  of  this  all-absorbing 
topic  swept  Hugh  away  from  the  merely  personal  stand- 
point. 

"And  you  call  yourself  an  American?"  he  demanded, 
hotly. 

"  I  call  myself  a  man.  I  don't  emphasize  the  American. 
This  thing  transcends  what  we  call  nationality." 

Hugh  shouted,  somewhat  in  the  tone  of  a  man  kicking 
against  the  pricks : 

24  359 


THE   HIGH    HEART 

"Not  what  I  call  nationality!  It's  got  nothing  to  do 
with  us." 

"Ah,  but  it  will  have  something  to  do  with  us!  It  isn't 
merely  a  European  struggle ;  it's  a  universal  one.  Sooner 
or  later  you'll  see  mankind  divided  into  just  two  camps." 

Hugh  warmed  to  the  discussion. 

"Even  if  we  do,  it  still  doesn't  follow  that  we'll  all  be  in 
your  camp." 

"That  depends  on  whether  we're  among  those  driving 
forward  or  those  kicking  back.  The  American  people  has 
been  in  the  first  of  these  classes  hitherto;  it  remains  to 
be  seen  whether  or  not  it's  there  still.  But  if  it  isn't  as  a 
nation  I  can  tell  you  that  some  of  us  will  be  there  as  indi- 
viduals." 

Hugh's  tone  was  one  of  horror. 

"You  mean  that  you'd  go  and  fight?" 

"That's  about  the  size  of  it." 

"Then  you'd  be  a  traitor  to  your  country  for  getting  her 
into  trouble." 

"  If  I  had  to  choose  between  being  a  traitor  to  my  coun- 
try and  a  traitor  to  my  manhood  I'd  take  the  first.  For- 
tunately, no  such  alternative  will  be  thrust  upon  us. 
Miss  Adare  pointed  out  to  me  onee  that  there  couldn't  be 
two  right  courses,  each  opposed  to  the  other.  Right  and 
rights  must  be  harmonious.  If  I'm  true  to  myself  I'm 
true  to  my  country;  and  I  can't  be  true  to  my  country 
unless  I  do  my  'bit,'  as  the  phrase  begins  to  go,  for  the 
good  of  the  human  race." 

"And  you're  really  going?"  I  asked,  breathlessly. 

"As  soon  as  I  can  arrange  things  with  Mr." — but  he 
remembered  he  was  speaking  to  a  Brokenshire — "as  soon 
as  I  can  arrange  things  with — with  my  boss.  He's  willing 
to  let  me  go,  and  to  keep  my  job  for  me  if  I  come  back. 

360 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

He'll  take  charge  of  my  small  funds  and  of  any  Miss  Adare 
intrusts  to  me.  He  asked  me  to  give  her  that  message. 
When  it's  settled  I  shall  start  for  Canada." 

"That  '11  do  you  no  good,"  Hugh  stated,  triumphantly. 
"They  won't  enlist  Americans  there." 

Larry  Strangways  smiled. 

"Oh,  there  are  ways!  If  there's  nothing  else  for  it 
I'll  swear  in  as  a  Canadian." 

"You'd  do  that!"  In  different  tones  the  exclamation 
came  from  Hugh  and  me,  simultaneously. 

I  can  still  see  Larry  Strangways  with  his  proud,  fair 
head  held  high. 

"I'd  do  anything  rather  than  not  fight.  My  American 
birthright  is  as  dear  to  me  as  it  is  to  any  one ;  but  we've 
reached  a  time  when  such  considerations  must  go  by  the 
board.  For  the  matter  of  that,  the  more  closely  we  can 
now  identify  the  Briton  and  the  American,  the  better  it 
will  be  for  the  world." 

He  explained  this  at  some  length.  The  theme  was  so 
engrossing  that  even  Hugh  was  willing  to  listen  to  the 
argument.  People  were  talking  already  of  a  world  federa- 
tion which  would  follow  the  war  and  unite  all  the  nations 
in  approximate  brotherhood.  Larry  Strangways  didn't 
believe  in  that  as  a  possibility;  at  least  he  didn't  believe 
in  it  as  an  immediate  possibility.  There  were  just  two 
nations  fitted  to  understand  each  other  and  act  together, 
and  if  they  couldn't  fraternize  and  sympathize  it  was  of 
no  use  to  expect  that  miracle  from  races  who  had  nothing 
in  common.  Get  the  United  States  and  the  British 
Empire  to  stand  shoulder  to  shoulder,  and  sooner  or  later 
the  other  peoples  would  line  up  beside  them. 

'But  you  must  begin  at  the  beginning.  Unless  you 
started  as  an  acorn  you  couldn't  be  an  oak;  if  you  were 

361 


THE   HIGH   HEART 

not  willing  to  be  a  baby  you  could  never  become  a  man. 
There  must  be  no  more  Hague  conferences,  with  their  vast 
programs  and  ineffective  means.  The  failure  of  that 
dream  was  evident.  We  must  be  practical;  we  mustn't 
soar  beyond  the  possible.  The  possible  and  the  practical 
lay  in  British  and  American  institutions  and  commonly 
understood  principles.  The  world  had  an  asset  in  them 
that  had  never  been  worked.  To  work  it  was  the  task 
not  primarily  of  governments,  but,  first  and  before  every- 
thing, of  individuals.  It  was  up  to  the  British  and  Ameri- 
can man  and  woman  in  their  personal  lives  and  opinions. 

I  interrupted  to  say  that  it  was  up  to  the  American  man 
and  woman  first  of  all;  that  British  willingness  to  co- 
operate with  America  was  far  more  ready  than  any  similar 
sentiment  on  the  American  side. 

Hugh  threw  the  stress  on  efficiency.  America  was  so 
thorough  in  her  methods  that  she  couldn't  co-operate  with 
British  muddling. 

"What  is  efficiency?"  Larry  Strangways  asked.  "It's 
the  best  means  of  doing  what  you  want  to  do,  isn't  it? 
Well,  then,  efficiency  is  a  matter  of  your  ambitions. 
There's  the  efficiency  of  the  watch-dog  who  loves  his 
master  and  guards  the  house,  and  there's  the  efficiency 
of  the  tiger  in  the  jungle.  One  has  one's  choice." 

It  was  not  a  question,  he  continued  to  reason,  as  to  who 
began  this  war — whether  it  was  a  king  or  a  czar  or  a  kaiser. 
It  was  not  a  question  of  English  and  German  competition, 
or  of  French  or  Russian  aggression,  or  fear  of  it.  The  in- 
quiry went  back  of  all  that.  It  went  back  beyond  modern 
Europe,  beyond  the  Middle  Ages,  beyond  Rome  and  Assy- 
ria and  Egypt.  It  was  a  battle  of  principles  rather  than  of 
nations — the  last  great  struggle  between  reason  and  force 
— the  fight  between  the  instinct  of  some  men  to  rule  other 

362 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

men  and  the  contrary  instinct,  implanted  more  or  less  in  all 
men,  that  they  shall  hold  up  their  heads  and  rule  them- 
selves. 

It  was  part  of  the  impulse  of  the  human  race  to  forge 
ahead  and  upward.  The  powers  that  worked  against 
liberty  had  been  arming  themselves,  not  merely  for  a 
generation  or  a  century,  but  since  the  beginning  of  time,  for 
just  this  trial  of  strength.  The  effort  would  be  colossal 
and  it  would  be  culminating;  no  human  being  would  be 
spared  taking  part  in  it.  If  America  didn't  come  in  of  her 
own  accord  she  would  be  compelled  to  come  in;  and  mean- 
time he,  Larry  Strangways,  was  going  of  free  will. 

He  didn't  express  it  in  just  this  way.  He  put  it  humbly, 
colloquially,  with  touches  of  slang. 

"I've  got  to  be  on  the  job,  Miss  Adare,  and  there  are  no 
two  ways  about  it,"  were  the  words  in  which  he  ended. 
"I've  just  run  down  from  New  York  to  speak  about — 
about  the  money;  and — and  to  bid  you  good-by."  He 
glanced  toward  Hugh.  "  Possibly,  in  view  of  the  fact  that 
I'm  so  soon  to  be  off — and  may  not  come  back,  you 
know,"  he  added,  with  a  laugh — "Mr.  Brokenshire  won't 
mind  if — if  we  shake  hands." 

I  can  say  to  Hugh's  credit  that  he  gave  us  a  little  while 
together.  Going  down  the  steps  he  had  mounted,  he 
called  back,  over  his  shoulder: 

"  I'm  going  off  for  a  walk,  dear.  I  shall  return  in  exactly 
fifteen  minutes ;  and  I  expect  you  to  be  ready  for  me  then. ' ' 

But  when  we  were  alone  we  had  little  or  nothing  to  say. 
I  recall  that  quarter  of  an  hour  as  a  period  of  emotional 
paralysis.  I  knew  and  he  knew  that  each  second  ticked 
off  an  instant  that  all  the  rest  of  our  lives  we  should  long 
for  in  vain;  and  yet  we  didn't  know  how  to  make  use  of  it. 

We  began  to  wander  slowly  up  the  slope.  We  did  it 

363 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

aimlessly,  stopping  when  we  were  only  a  few  yards  away 
from  the  steps.  We  talked  about  the  money.  We  talked 
about  his  going  to  Canada.  We  talked  about  the  breaking 
off,  so  far  as  we  knew,  of  all  intercourse  between  Mr. 
Grainger  and  Mrs.  Brokenshire.  But  we  said  nothing 
about  ourselves.  We  said  nothing  about  anything  but 
what  was  superficial  and  trite  and  lame. 

Once  or  twice  Larry  Strangways  took  out  his  watch  and 
glanced  at  it,  as  if  to  underscore  the  fact  that  the  sands 
were  slipping  away.  I  kept  my  face  hidden  as  much  as 
possible  beneath  the  rose-colored  parasol.  So  far  as  I 
could  judge,  he  looked  over  my  head.  We  still  had  said 
nothing — there  was  still  nothing  we  could  say — when, 
beneath  the  bank  of  the  lawn,  and  moving  back  in  our 
direction,  we  saw  the  crown  of  Hugh's  Panama. 

"Good-by!"  Larry  Strangways  said,  then. 

"Good-by!" 

My  hand  rested  in  his  without  pressure;  without  pres- 
sure his  had  taken  mine.  I  think  his  eyes  made  one  last 
wild,  desperate  appeal  to  me;  but  if  so  I  was  unable  to 
respond  to  it. 

I  don't  know  how  it  happened  that  he  turned  his  back 
and  walked  firmly  up  the  lawn.  I  don't  know  how  it 
happened  that  I  also  turned  and  took  the  necessary  steps 
toward  Hugh.  All  I  can  say  is — and  I  can  say  it  only  in 
this  way — all  I  can  say  is,  I  felt  that  I  had  died. 

That  is,  I  felt  that  I  had  died  except  for  one  queer, 
bracing  echo  which  suddenly  came  back  to  me.  It  was 
in  the  words  Mildred  Brokenshire  had  used,  and  which, 
at  the  time,  I  had  thought  too  deep  for  me  to  understand: 

"Life  is  not  a  blind  impulse  working  blindly.  It  is  a 
beneficent  rectifying  power." 


CHAPTER  XXIII 

AS  Hugh  Brokenshire  and  I  were  walking  along  the 
Ocean  Drive  a  few  days  after  Larry  Strangways  had 
come  and  gone,  the  dear  lad  got  some  satisfaction  from 
charging  me  with  inconsistency. 

"You're  certainly  talking  about  England  and  Canada 
to-day  very  differently  from  what  you  used  to." 

"Am  I?  Well,  if  it  seems  so  it's  because  you  don't 
understand  the  attitude  of  Canadians  toward  their  mother 
country.  As  a  country,  as  a  government,  England  has 
been  magnificently  true  to  us  always.  It's  only  between 
Englishmen  and  Canadians  as  individuals  that  irritation 
arises,  and  for  that  most  Canadians  don't  care.  The 
Englishman  snubs  and  the  Canadian  grows  bumptious.  I 
don't  think  the  Canadian  would  grow  bumptious  if  the 
Englishman  didn't  snub.  Both  snubbing  and  bumptious- 
ness are  offensive  to  me;  but  that,  I  suppose,  is  because 
I'm  over-sensitive.  And  yet  one  forgets  sensitiveness  when 
it  comes  to  anything  really  national.  In  that  we're  one, 
with  as  perfect  a  solidarity  as  that  which  binds  Oregon 
to  Florida.  You'll  never  find  one  of  us  who  isn't  proud 
to  serve  when  England  gives  the  orders." 

"To  be  snubbed  by  her  for  serving." 

"Certainly;  to  be  snubbed  by  her  for  serving !  It's  all 
we  look  for;  it's  all  we  shall  ever  get.  No  one  need  make 
any  mistake  about  that.  In  Canada  we're  talking  of 

365 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

sending  fifty  thousand  troops  to  the  front.  We  may  send 
five  hundred  thousand  and  we  shall  still  be  snubbed.  But 
we're  not  such  children  as  to  go  into  a  cause  in  the  hope 
that  some  one  will  give  us  sweets.  We  do  it  for  the  Cause. 
We  know,  too,  that  it  isn't  exactly  injustice  on  the  English 
side;  it's  only  ungraciousness." 

"Oh,  they're  long  on  ungraciousness,  all  right." 

"Yes;  they're  very  long  on  ungraciousness — " 

"Even  dad  feels  that.  You  should  hear  him  cuss  after 
he's  been  kotowing  to  some  British  celebrity — and  given 
him  the  best  of  all  he's  got — and  put  him  up  at  the  good 
clubs.  They  bring  him  letters  in  shoals,  you  know — " 

"  I'm  afraid  it  has  to  be  admitted  that  the  best-mannered 
among  them  are  often  rude  from  our  transatlantic  point  of 
view;  and  yet  the  very  rudeness  is  one  of  the  defects  of 
their  good  qualities.  You  can  no  more  take  the  ungra- 
ciousness out  of  the  English  character  than  you  can  take 
the  hardness  out  of  granite;  but  if  granite  wasn't  hard  it 
wouldn't  serve  its  purposes.  We  Canadians  know  that, 
don't  you  see?  We  allow  for  it  in  advance,  just  as  you 
allow  for  the  clumsiness  of  the  elephant  for  the  sake  of 
his  strength  and  sagacity.  We're  not  angels  ourselves — 
neither  you  Americans  nor  we  Canadians;  and  yet  we 
Eke  to  get  the  credit  for  such  small  merits  as  we 
possess." 

Hugh  whipped  off  the  blossom  of  a  roadside  flower  as  he 
swung  his  stick. 

"All  they  give  us  credit  for  is  money." 

"Well,  they  certainly  give  you  a  great  deal  of  credit  for 
that!"  I  laughed.  "They  make  a  golden  calf  of  you. 
They  fall  down  and  worship  you,  like  the  children  of  Israel 
in  the  wilderness.  When  we're  as  rich  as  we  shall  be  some 
day  they'll  do  the  same  by  us." 

366 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

Within  a  week  my  intercourse  with  Hugh  had  come  to  be 
wholly  along  international  lines.  We  were  no  longer 
merely  a  man  and  a  woman;  we  were  types;  we  were 
points  of  view.  The  world-struggle — the  time-struggle,  as 
Larry  Strangways  would  have  called  it — had  broken  out 
in  us.  The  interlocking  of  human  destinies  had  become 
apparent.  As  positively  as  Franz  Ferdinand  and  Sophie 
Chotek,  we  had  our  part  in  the  vast  drama.  Even  Hugh, 
against  all  his  inclinations  to  hang  back,  was  obliged  to 
take  his  share.  So  lost  were  we  in  the  theme  that,  as  we 
tramped  along,  we  had  not  a  thought  for  the  bracing  wind, 
the  ruffled  seas,  the  dashing  of  surf  over  ledges,  or  the 
exquisite,  gentle  savagery  of  the  rocky  flowering  uplands, 
with  villas  marking  the  sky-line  as  they  do  on  the  C6te 
d'Azur. 

I  was  the  more  willing  to  discuss  the  subject  since  I 
felt  it  a  kind  of  mission  from  Mr.  Strangways  to  carry  out 
the  object  he  had  so  much  at  heart.  I  was  to  be — so  far 
as  so  humble  a  body  as  I  could  be  it — an  interpreter  of  the 
one  country  to  the  other.  I  reckoned  that  if  I  explained 
and  explained  and  explained,  and  didn't  let  myself  grow 
tired  of  explaining,  some  little  shade  of  the  distrust  which 
each  of  the  great  English-speaking  nations  has  for  its 
fellow  might  be  scrubbed  away.  I  couldn't  do  much,  but 
the  value  of  all  effort  is  in  proportion  to  the  opportunity. 
So  I  began  with  Hugh. 

"You  see,  Hugh,  peoples  are  like  people.  Each  of  us 
has  his  weak  points  as  well  as  his  strong  ones;  but  we  don't 
necessarily  hate  each  other  on  that  account.  You've 
lived  in  England,  and  you  know  the  English  rub  you  up 
the  wrong  way.  I've  lived  there,  too,  and  had  exactly 
the  same  experience.  But  we  go  through  just  that  thing 
with  lots  of  individuals  with  whom  we  manage  to  be  very 

367 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

good  friends.  You  and  your  brother  Jack,  for  instance, 
don't  hit  it  off  so  very  well;  and  yet  you  contrive  to  be 
Brokenshires  together  and  uphold  the  honor  of  the 
family." 

"  I'm  a  Socialist  and  Jack's  a  snob — " 

"That's  it.  Mentally  you're  the  world  apart.  But, 
as  you've  objects  in  common  to  work  for,  you  get  along 
fairly  well.  Now  why  shouldn't  the  Englishman  and  the 
American  do  the  same?  Why  should  they  always  see  how 
much  they  differ  instead  of  how  much  they  are  alike? 
Why  should  they  always  underscore  each  other's  faults 
when  by  seeing  each  other's  good  points  they  could  benefit 
not  only  themselves,  but  the  world?  If  there  was  an  en- 
tente, let  us  say,  between  the  British  Empire  and  the 
United  States — not  exactly  an  alliance,  perhaps,  if  people 
are  afraid  of  the  word — " 

He  stopped  and  wheeled  round  suddenly,  suspicion  in 
his  small,  myosotis-colored  eyes. 

"Look  here,  little  Alix;  isn't  this  the  dope  that  fresh 
guy  Strangways  was  handing  out  the  other  day?" 

I  flushed,  but  I  didn't  stammer. 

"I  don't  care  whether  it  is  or  not.  Besides,  it  isn't 
dope;  it's  food;  it's  medicine;  it's  a  remedy  for  the  ills  of 
this  poor  old  civilization.  We've  got  it  in  our  power,  we 
English-speaking  peoples — " 

"You  haven't,"  he  declared,  coolly.  "Your  country 
would  still  be  the  goat." 

"Yes,"  I  agreed,  "Canada  would  still  be  the  goat;  but 
we  don't  mind  that.  We're  used  to  it.  You'll  always 
have  a  fling  at  us  on  one  side  and  England  on  the  other; 
but  we're  like  the  strong,  good-natured  boy  who  doesn't 
resent  kicks  and  cuffs  because  he  knows  he  can  grow  and 
thrive  in  spite  of  them." 

368 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

He  put  his  hand  on  my  arm  and  spoke  in  the  kindly  tone 
that  reminded  me  of  his  father. 

"  My  dear  little  girl,  you  can  drop  it.  It  won't  go  down. 
Suppose  we  keep  to  the  sort  of  thing  you  can  tackle. 
You  see,  when  you've  married  me  you'll  be  an  American. 
Then  you'll  be  out  of  it." 

I  was  hurt.  I  was  furious.  The  expression,  too,  was 
getting  on  my  nerves.  I  began  to  wish  I  was  out  of  it. 
Since  I  couldn't  be  in  it,  marriage  might  prove  a  Lethe 
bath,  in  which  I  should  forget  I  had  anything  to  do  with 
it.  Sheer  desperation  made  me  cry  out: 

"Very  well,  then,  Hugh!  If  we're  to  be  married,  can't 
we  be  married  quickly?  Then  I  shall  have  it  off  my 
mind." 

There  was  not  only  a  woeful  decline  of  spirit  in  his 
response,  but  a  full  acceptance  of  the  Brokenshire  yoke. 

"We  can't  be  married  any  quicker  than  dad  says.  But 
I'll  talk  to  him." 

He  made  no  objection,  however,  when,  a  little  later,  I 
received  from  my  uncle  a  draft  for  my  entire  fortune  and 
announced  my  intention  of  handing  the  sum  over  to  Mr. 
Strangways  for  investment.  Hugh  probably  looked  on 
the  amount  as  too  insignificant  to  talk  about ;  in  addition 
to  which  some  Brokenshire  instinct  for  the  profitable  may 
have  led  him  to  appreciate  a  thing  so  good  as  to  make  it 
folly  to  say  nay  to  it.  The  result  was  that  I  heard  from 
Larry  Strangways,  in  letters  which  added  nothing  to  my 
comfort. 

I  don't  know  what  I  expected  him  to  say;  but,  whatever 
it  was,  he  didn't  say  it.  He  Wasn't  curt;  his  letters  were 
not  short.  On  the  contrary,  he  wrote  at  length,  and 
brought  up  subjects  that  had  nothing  to  do  with  certifi- 
cates of  stock.  But  they  were  all  political  or  international, 

369 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

or  related  in  one  way  or  another  to  the  ideal  of  his  heart — 
England  and  America!  The  British  Empire  and  the 
United  States!  The  brotherhood  of  democracies!  Why 
in  thunder  had  the  bally  world  waited  so  long  for  the 
coalition  of  dominating  influences  which  alone  could  keep 
it  straight?  Why  dream  of  the  impossible  when  the  prac- 
tical had  not  as  yet  been  tried?  Why  talk  peace,  peace, 
when  there  was  no  peace  at  The  Hague,  if  a  full  and  con- 
trolling sympathy  could  be  effected  nearer  home — let  us 
say  at  Ottawa?  He  was  going  to  Canada  to  enlist;  he 
would  start  in  a  few  days'  time;  but  he  was  doing  it  not 
merely  to  fight  for  the  Cause ;  he  was  going  to  be  one  man, 
at  least,  just  a  straggling  democratic  scout — one  of  a  for- 
lorn hope,  if  you  chose  to  call  it  so — to  offer  his  life  to  a 
union  of  which  the  human  race  had  the  same  sort  of  need 
as  human  beings  of  wedlock. 

And  in  all  this  there  was  no  reference  to  me.  He  might 
not  have  loved  me;  I  might  not  have  loved  him.  I  an- 
swered the  letters  in  the  vein  in  which  they  were  written, 
and  once  or  twice  showed  my  replies  to  Hugh. 

"Forget  it !"  was  his  ordinary  comment.  "The  Ameri- 
can eagle  is  too  wise  an  old  bird  to  be  caught  with  salt  on 
its  tail." 

Perhaps  it  was  because  Larry  Strangways  made  no 
appeal  to  me  that  I  gave  myself  to  forwarding  his  work 
with  a  more  enthusiastic  zeal.  I  had  to  do  it  quietly,  for 
fear  of  offending  Hugh ;  but  I  got  my  opportunities — that 
is,  I  got  my  opportunities  to  talk,  though  I  saw  I  made 
no  impression. 

I  was  only  a  girl — the  queer  Canadian  who  had  been 
Ethel  Rossiter's  nursery  governess  and  whom  the  Broken- 
shire  family,  for  unexplained  reasons,  had  accepted  as 
Hugh's  future  wife.  What  could  I  know  about  matters  at 

370 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

which  statesmen  had  always  shied?  It  was  preposterous 
that  I  should  speak  of  them;  it  was  presumptuous.  No- 
body told  me  that;  I  saw  it  in  people's  eyes. 

And  I  should  have  seen  it  in  their  eyes  more  plainly  if 
they  had  been  interested.  No  one  was.  An  entente  be- 
tween the  United  States  and  the  British  Empire  might 
have  been  an  alliance  between  Bolivia  and  Beluchistan. 
It  wasn't  merely  fashionable  folk  who  wouldn't  think  of 
it;  no  one  would.  I  knew  plenty  of  people  by  this  time. 
I  knew  townspeople  of  Newport,  and  summer  residents, 
and  that  intermediate  group  of  retired  admirals  and  pro- 
fessors who  come  in  between  the  two.  I  knew  shop  people 
and  I  knew  servants,  all  with  their  stake  in  the  country, 
their  stake  in  the  world.  Not  a  soul  among  them  cared 
a  hang. 

And  then,  threatening  to  put  me  entirely  out  of  business, 
we  got  the  American  war  refugees  and  the  English  visitors. 
I  group  them  together  because  they  belonged  together. 
They  belonged  together  for  the  reason  that  there  was  noth- 
ing each  one  of  them  didn't  know — by  hearsay  from  some 
one  who  knew  it  by  hearsay.  The  American  war  refugees 
had  all  been  in  contact  with  people  hi  England  whom  they 
characterized  as  well  informed.  The  English  visitors 
were  well  informed  because  they  were  English  visitors. 
Some  of  them  told  prodigious  secrets  which  they  had  in- 
directly from  Downing  Street.  Others  gave  the  reasons 
why  General  Isleworth  had  been  superseded  in  his  com- 
mand, and  the  part  Mrs.  Lamingford,  that  beautiful 
American,  had  played  in  the  scandal.  From  others  we 
learned  that  Lady  Hull,  with  her  baleful  charm,  was  the 
influence  really  responsible  for  the  shortage  of  shells. 

War  was  shown  to  us  by  our  English  visitors  not  as  a 
mighty,  pitiless  contest,  but  as  a  series  of  social,  sexual,  and 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

political  intrigues,  in  which  women  pulled  the  strings.  I 
know  it  was  talk ;  but  talk  it  was.  For  weeks,  for  months, 
we  had  it  with  the  greater  number  of  our  meals.  Wher- 
ever there  were  English  guests — women  of  title  they  often 
were,  or  eccentric  public  men — we  had  an  orgy  of  tales  in 
which  the  very  entrails  of  English  reputations  were  torn 
out.  No  one  was  spared — not  even  the  Highest  in  the 
Land.  All  the  American  could  do  was  to  listen  open- 
mouthed;  and  open-mouthed  he  listened. 

I  will  say  for  the  English  that  they  have  no  disloyalty 
but  that  of  chatter;  but  the  plain  American  could  not  be 
expected  to  know  that.  To  him  the  chatter  was  gospel 
truth.  He  has  none  of  that  facility  for  discounting  gossip 
on  the  great  which  the  Englishman  learns  with  his  mother 
tongue.  The  American  heard  it  greedily;  he  was  avid  for 
more.  He  retailed  it  at  dinners  and  teas,  and  in  that 
Reading-room  which  is  really  a  club.  Naturally  enough ! 
From  what  our  English  visitors  told  us  about  themselves', 
their  statesmen,  their  generals,  their  admirals  were  footlers 
at  the  best,  and  could,  moreover,  be  described  by  a  vigor- 
ous compound  Anglo-Saxon  word  in  the  Book  of  Revela- 
tions. 

And  the  English  papers  were  no  better.  All  the  impor- 
tant ones,  weeklies  as  well  as  dailies,  were  sent  to  Mr. 
Brokenshire,  and  copies  lay  about  at  Mr.  Rossiter's. 
They  sickened  me.  I  stopped  reading  them.  There  was 
good  in  them,  doubtless;  but  what  I  chiefly  found  was  a 
wild  tempest  of  abuse  of  this  party  or  that  party,  of  this 
leading  man  or  that  leading  man,  with  the  effect  on  the 
imagination  of  a  ship  going  down  amid  the  curses  and  con- 
fusion of  officers  and  passengers  alike.  It  may  have 
sounded  well  in  England;  very  likely  it  did;  but  in  Ameri- 
ca it  was  horrible.  I  mention  it  here  only  because,  in  this 

372 


THE   HIGH   HEART 

babel  of  voices,  my  own  faint  pipe  on  behalf  of  a  league  of 
democracies  could  no  more  be  heard  than  the  tinkle  of  a 
sacring  bell  amid  the  shrieking  and  bursting  of  shells. 

I  was  often  tempted  to  say  no  more  about  it  and  let 
the  world  go  to  pot.  Then  I  thought  of  Larry  Strang- 
ways,  offering  his  life  for  an  ideal  as  to  which  I  was  un- 
willing to  speak  a  word.  So  I  would  begin  my  litany  of 
Bolivia  and  Beluchistan  over  again,  crooning  it  into  the 
ears  of  people,  both  gentle  and  simple,  who,  in  the  matter 
of  response,  might  never  have  heard  the  names  of  the  two 
countries  I  mentioned  together. 

A  few  lines  from  one  of  Larry  Strangways's  letters, 
written  from  Valcartier,  prompted  me  to  persevere  in  this 
course: 

People  are  no  more  interested  here  than  they  are  on  our  side  of 
the  border;  but  it's  got  to  come,  for  all  that.  What  we  need  is  a 
public  opinion;  and  a  public  opinion  can  only  be  created  by  writing 
and  talk.  Thank  the  Lord,  you  and  I  can  talk  if  we  are  not  very 
strong  on  writing!  and  talk  we  must!  Bigger  streams  have  risen 
from  smaller  springs.  The  mustard  seed  is  the  least  of  all  seeds;  but 
ft  grows  to  be  the  greatest  of  herbs. 

It  might  have  been  easier  to  call  forth  a  responsive  spark 
had  we  realized  that  there  was  a  war.  But  we  hadn't — 
not  in  the  way  that  the  fact  came  to  us  afterward.  In 
spite  of  the  taking  of  Namur,  Liege,  Maubeuge,  the  ad- 
vance on  Paris,  and  the  rolling  back  on  the  Marne,  we  had 
seen  no  more  than  chariots  and  horses  of  fire  in  the  clouds. 
It  was  not  only  distant,  it  was  phantom-like.  We  read  the 
papers;  we  heard  of  horrors;  American  war  refugees  and 
English  visitors  alike  piled  up  the  agonies,  to  which  we 
listened  eagerly;  we  saw  the  moneyed  magnates  come  and 
go  in  counsel  with  Mr.  Brokenshire;  we  knitted  and  sewed 

373 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

and  subscribed  to  funds;  but,  so  far  as  vital  participation 
went,  Hugh  was  right  in  saying  we  were  out  of  it. 

And  then  a  shot  fell  into  our  midst,  smiting  us  with  awe. 

Cissie  Boscobel,  Hugh,  another  young  man,  and  I  had 
been  playing  tennis  one  September  morning  on  Mrs.  Ros- 
siter's  courts.  The  other  young  man  having  left  for 
Bailey's  Beach,  the  remaining  three  of  us  were  sauntering 
back  toward  the  house  when  a  lad,  whom  Cissie  recognized 
as  belonging  to  the  Burkes'  establishment,  came  running 
up  with  a  telegram.  As  it  was  for  Cissie  she  stood  still 
to  read  it,  while  Hugh  and  I  strolled  on.  Once  or  twice  I 
glanced  back  toward  her;  but  she  still  held  the  brief  lines 
up  before  her  as  if  she  couldn't  make  out  their  meaning. 

When  she  rejoined  us,  as  she  presently  did,  I  noticed  that 
her  color  had  died  out,  though  there  was  otherwise  no 
change  in  her  unless  it  was  in  stillness.  The  question  was 
as  to  whether  we  should  go  to  Bailey's  or  not.  I  didn't 
want  to  go  and  Hugh  declared  he  wouldn't  go  without  me. 

"We'll  put  it  up  to  Cissie,"  he  said,  as  we  reached  the 
house.  "  If  she  goes  we'll  all  go." 

"I  think  I  won't  go,"  she  answered,  quietly;  adding, 
without  much  change  of  tone,  "  Leatherhead's  been  killed 
inaction." 

So  there  really  was  a  war!  Hugh's  deep  "Oh!"  was  in 
itself  like  the  distant  rumble  of  guns. 


CHAPTER  XXIV 

'"THERE  was  nothing  to  be  done  for  Lady  Cecilia  be- 
•*•  cause  she  took  her  bereavement  with  so  little  fuss. 
She  asked  for  no  sympathy;  so  far  as  I  ever  saw,  she  shed 
no  tears.  If  on  that  particular  spot  in  the  neighborhood  of 
Ypres  a  man  had  had  to  fall  for  his  country,  she  was  proud 
that  it  had  been  a  Boscobel.  She  put  on  a  black  frock  and 
ordered  her  maid  to  take  the  jade-green  plume  out  of  a 
black  hat;  but,  except  that  she  declined  invitations,  she 
went  about  as  usual.  As  the  first  person  we  knew  to  be 
touched  by  the  strange  new  calamity  of  war,  we  made  a 
kind  of  heroine  of  her,  treating  her  with  an  almost  ro- 
mantic reverence;  but  she  herself  never  seemed  aware  of 
it.  It  was  my  first  glimpse  of  that  unflinching  British 
heroism  of  which  I  have  since  seen  much,  and  it  impressed 
me. 

We  began  to  dream  together  of  being  useful;  our  diffi- 
culty was  that  we  didn't  see  the  way.  War  had  not  yet 
made  its  definite  claims  on  women  and  girls,  and  knitting 
till  our  muscles  ached  was  not  a  sufficient  outlet  for  our 
energies.  Had  I  been  in  Cissie's  place,  I  should  have  gone 
home  at  once;  but  I  suspected  that,  in  spite  of  all  her 
brave  words  to  me,  she  couldn't  quite  kill  the  hope  that 
kept  her  lingering  on. 

My  own  ambitions  being  distasteful  to  Hugh,  I  was 
obliged  to  repress  them,  doing  so  with  the  greater  regret 
25  375 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

because  some  of  the  courses  I  suggested  would  have  done 
him  good.  They  would  have  utilized  the  physical  strength 
with  which  he  was  blessed,  and  delivered  him  from  that 
material  well-being  to  which  he  returned  with  the  more 
child-like  rejoicing  because  of  having  been  without  it. 

"Hugh,  dear,"  I  said  to  him  once,  "couldn't  we  be 
married  soon  and  go  over  to  France  or  England  ?  Then  we 
should  see  whether  there  wasn't  something  we  could  do." 

"Not  on  your  life,  little  Alix!"  was  his  laughing  re- 
sponse. "Since  as  Americans  we're  out  of  it,  out  of  it  we 
shall  stay." 

Over  replies  like  this,  of  which  there  were  many,  I  was 
gnashing  my  teeth  helplessly  when,  all  at  once,  I  was 
called  on  to  see  myself  as  others  saw  me,  so  getting  a 
surprise. 

The  first  note  of  warning  came  to  me  in  a  few  words 
from  Ethel  Rossiter.  I  was  scribbling  her  notes  one 
morning  as  she  lay  in  bed,  when  it  occurred  to  me  to  say: 

"If  I'm  going  to  be  married,  I  suppose  I  ought  to  be 
doing  something  about  clothes." 

She  murmured,  listlessly: 

"Oh,  I  wouldn't  be  in  a  hurry  about  that,  if  I  were  you." 

I  went  on  writing. 

"I  haven't  been  in  a  hurry,  have  I?  But  I  shall  cer- 
tainly want  some  things  I  haven't  got  now." 

"Then  you  can  get  them,  after  you're  married.  When 
are  you  to  be  married,  anyhow?" 

As  the  question  was  much  on  my  mind,  I  looked  up  from 
my  task  and  said: 

"Well— when?" 

"Don't  you  know?" 

"No.     Do  you?" 

She  shook  her  head. 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

"I  didn't  know  but  what  father  had  said  something 
about  it." 

"He  hasn't — not  a  word."  I  resumed  my  scribbling. 
"It's  a  queer  thing  for  him  to  have  to  settle,  don't  you 
think?  One  might  have  supposed  it  would  have  been  left 
to  me." 

"Oh,  you  don't  know  father !"  It  was  as  if  throwing  off 
something  of  no  importance  that  she  added,  "Of  course, 
he  can  see  that  you're  not  in  love  with  Hugh." 

Amazed  at  this  reading  of  my  heart,  I  bent  my  head  to 
hide  my  confusion. 

"I  don't  know  why  you  should  say  that,"  I  stammered 
at  last,  "when  you  can't  help  seeing  I'm  quite  true  to 
him." 

She  shrugged  her  beautiful  shoulders,  of  which  one  was 
bare. 

"Oh,  true!  What's  the  good  of  that?"  She  went  on, 
casually:  " By  the  by,  do  call  up  Daisy  Burke  and  tell  her 
I  sha'n't  go  to  that  luncheon  of  theirs.  They're  going  to 
have  old  lady  Billing,  who's  coming  to  stay  at  father's; 
and  you  don't  catch  me  with  that  lot  except  when  I  can't 
help  it."  She  reverted  to  the  topic  of  a  minute  before. 
"  I  don't  blame  you,  of  course.  I  suppose,  if  I  were  in  your 
place,  it's  what  I  should  do  myself.  It's  what  I  thought 
you'd  try  for — you  remember,  don't  you? — as  long  ago  as 
when  we  were  in  Halifax.  But  naturally  enough  other 
people  don't — "  I  failed  to  learn,  however,  what  other 
people  didn't,  because  of  a  second  reversion  in  theme: 
"  Do  make  up  something  civil  to  say  to  Daisy,  and  tell  her 
I  won't  come." 

We  dropped  the  subject,  chiefly  because  I  was  afraid 
to  go  on  with  it;  but  when  I  met  old  Mrs.  Billing  I  re- 
ceived a  similar  shock.  Having  gone  to  Mr.  Brokenshire's 

377 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

to  pay  her  my  respects,  I  was  told  she  was  on  the  terrace. 
As  a  matter  of  fact,  she  was  making  her  way  toward  the 
hall,  and  awkwardly  carried  a  book,  a  sunshade,  and  the 
stump  of  a  cigarette.  Dutifully  I  went  forward  in  the 
hope  of  offering  my  services. 

"Get  out  of  my  sight!"  was  her  response  to  my  greet- 
ings. ' '  I  can't  bear  to  look  at  you. ' ' 

Brushing  past  me  without  further  words,  she  entered 
the  house. 

"What  did  she  mean?"  I  asked  of  Cissie  Boscobel,  to 
whom  I  heard  that  Mrs.  Billing  had  given  her  own  account 
of  the  incident. 

Lady  Cecilia  was  embarrassed. 

' '  Oh,  nothing !    She's  just  so  very  odd. ' ' 

But  I  insisted: 

"  She  must  have  meant  something.  Had  it  anything  to 
do  with  Hugh?" 

Reluctantly  Lady  Cissie  let  it  out.  Mrs.  Billing  had  got 
the  idea  that  I  was  marrying  Hugh  for  his  money;  and, 
though  in  the  past  she  had  not  disapproved  of  this  line  of 
action,  she  had  come  to  think  it  no  road  to  happiness. 
Having  taken  the  trouble  to  give  me  more  than  one  hint 
that  I  should  marry  the  man  I  was  in  love  with  she  was 
now  disappointed  in  my  character. 

"You  know  how  much  truth  there  is  in  all  that,  don't 
you?"  I  said,  evasively. 

Lady  Cissie  did  her  best  to  support  rne,  though  between 
her  words  and  her  inflection  there  was  a  curious  lack  of 
correspondence. 

"Oh  yes— certainly!" 

I  got  the  reaction  of  her  thought,  however,  some  minutes 
later,  when  she  said,  apropos  of  nothing  in  our  conversa- 
tion: 

378 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

"Since  Janet  can't  be  married  this  month,  I  needn't  go 
home  for  a  long  time." 

But  knowing  that  this  suggestion  was  in  the  air,  I  was 
the  better  able  to  interpret  Mildred's  oracular  utterance 
the  next  time  I  sat  at  the  foot  of  the  couch,  in  the  darkened 
room. 

"One  can't  be  true  to  another,"  she  said,  in  reply  to 
some  feeler  of  my  own,  "unless  one  is  true  to  oneself,  and 
one  can't  be  true  to  oneself  unless  one  follows  the  highest 
of  one's  instincts." 

I  said,  inwardly :  "  Ah !  Now  I  know  the  reason  for  her 
distrust  of  me. ' '  Aloud  I  made  it : 

"But  that  throws  us  back  on  the  question  as  to  what 
one's  highest  instincts  are." 

There  was  the  pause  that  preceded  all  her  expressions 
of  opinion. 

"On  the  principle  that  it  is  more  blessed  to  give  than 
to  receive,  I  suppose  our  highest  promptings  are  those 
which  urge  us  to  give  most  of  ourselves." 

"And  when  one  gives  all  of  oneself  that  one  can  dis- 
pose of?" 

"One  has  then  to  consider  the  importance  or  the  unim- 
portance of  what  one  has  to  withhold." 

Of  all  the  things  that  had  been  said  to  me  this  was  the 
most  disturbing.  It  had  seemed  to  me  hitherto  that  the 
essence  of  my  duty  lay  in  marrying  Hugh.  If  I  married 
him,  I  argued,  I  should  have  done  my  best  to  make  up  to 
him  for  all  he  had  undergone  for  my  sake.  I  saw  myself 
as  owing  him  a  debt.  The  refusal  to  pay  it  would  have 
implied  a  kind  of  moral  bankruptcy.  Considering  myself 
solvent,  and  also  considering  myself  honest,  I  felt  I  had  no 
choice.  Since  I  could  pay,  I  must  pay.  The  reasoning 
was  the  more  forcible  because  I  liked  Hugh  and  was 

379 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

grateful  to  him.     I  could  be  tolerably  happy  with  him,  and 
would  make  him  a  good  wife. 

To  make  him  a  good  wife  I  had  choked  back  everything 
I  had  ever  felt  for  Larry  Strangways;  I  had  submitted  to 
all  the  Brokenshire  repressions ;  I  had  made  myself  humble 
and  small  before  Hugh  and  his  father,  and  accepted  the 
status  of  a  Libby  Jaynes.  My  heart  cried  out  like  any 
other  woman's  heart — it  cried  out  for  my  country  in  the 
hour  of  its  stress;  it  cried  out  for  my  home  in  what  I  tried 
to  make  the  hour  of  my  happiness;  when  it  caught  me 
unawares  it  cried  out  for  the  man  I  loved.  But  all  this  I 
mastered  as  our  Canadian  men  were  mastering  their 
longings  and  regrets  on  saying  their  good-bys.  What  was 
to  be  done  was  to  be  done,  and  done  willingly.  Willingly 
I  meant  to  marry  Hugh,  not  because  he  was  the  man  I 
would  have  chosen  before  all  others,  but  because,  when  no 
one  else  in  the  world  was  giving  me  a  thought,  he  had  had 
the  astonishing  goodness  to  choose  me.  And  now — 

With  Mrs.  Brokenshire  the  situation  was  different.  She 
believed  I  was  in  love  with  Hugh  and  that  the  others  were 
doing  me  a  wrong.  Moreover,  she  informed  me  one  day 
that  I  was  making  my  way  in  Newport.  People  who 
noticed  me  once  noticed  me  again.  The  men  beside  whom 
I  sat  at  the  occasional  lunches  and  dinners  I  attended 
often  spoke  of  me  to  the  hostess  on  going  away,  and  there 
could  be  no  better  sign  than  that.  They  said  that,  though 
I  "wasn't  long  on  looks,"  I  had  ideas  and  knew  how  to 
express  them.  She  ventured  to  hope  that  this  kindly 
opinion  might,  in  the  end,  soften  Mr.  Brokenshire. 

"  Do  you  mean  that  he  isn't  softened  as  it  is  ?" 

She  answered,  indirectly: 

"He's  not  accustomed  to  be  forced — and  he  feels  I've 
forced  him." 

380 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

It  was  her  first  reference  to  what  she  had  done  for  Hugh 
and  me.  In  its  way  it  gave  me  permission  to  say : 

"But  isn't  it  a  question  of  the  quid  pro  quof  If  you 
granted  him  something  for  something  he  granted  you  in 
return — " 

But  the  expression  on  her  face  forbade  my  going  on, 
I  have  never  seen  such  a  parting  to  human  lips,  or  so 
haunting,  so  lost  a  look  in  human  eyes.  It  told  me  every- 
thing. It  was  a  confession  of  all  the  things  she  never 
could  have  said.  "Better  is  it,"  says  the  Book  of  Eccle- 
siastes,  "that  thou  shouldest  not  vow,  than  that  thou 
shouldest  vow  and  not  pay."  She  had  vowed  and  not 
paid.  She  had  got  her  price  and  hadn't  fulfilled  her  bar- 
gain. She  couldn't;  she  never  would.  It  was  beyond  her. 
The  big  moneyed  man  who  at  that  minute  was  helping  to 
finance  a  good  part  of  Europe,  who  was  a  power  not  only  in 
a  city  or  a  country,  but  the  world,  had  been  tricked  by  a 
woman;  and  I  in  my  poor  little  person  was  the  symbol  of 
his  discomfiture. 

No  wonder  he  found  it  hard  to  forgive  me !  No  wonder 
that  whenever  I  came  where  he  was  he  treated  me  to  some 
kindly  hint  or  correction  which  was  no  sufficient  veil  for 
his  scorn!  As  I  had  never  to  my  knowledge  been  hated 
by  any  one, it  was  terrible  to  feel  myself  an  object  of  abhor- 
rence to  a  man  of  such  high  standing  in  the  world.  Our 
eyes  couldn't  meet  without  my  seeing  that  his  passions 
were  seething  to  the  boiling-point.  If  he  could  have 
struck  me  dead  with  a  look  I  think  he  would  have  done  it. 
And  I  didn't  hate  him;  I  was  too  sorry  for  him.  I  could 
have  liked  him  if  he  had  let  me. 

I  had,  consequently,  much  to  think  about.  I  thought 
and  I  prayed.  It  was  not  a  minute  at  which  to  do  any- 
thing hurriedly.  To  a  spirit  so  hot  as  mine  it  would  have 

381 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

been  a  relief  to  lash  out  at  them  all ;  but,  as  I  had  checked 
myself  hitherto,  I  checked  myself  again.  I  reasoned  that 
if  I  kept  close  to  right,  right  would  take  care  of  me.  Not 
being  a  theologian,  I  felt  free  to  make  some  closeness  of 
identity  between  right  and  God.  I  might  have  defined 
right  as  God  in  action,  or  God  as  right  in  conjunction  with 
omnipotence,  intelligence,  and  love;  but  I  had  no  need  for 
exactness  of  terms.  In  keeping  near  to  right  I  knew  I 
must  be  near  to  God:  and  near  to  God  I  could  let  myself 
go  so  far  that  no  power  on  earth  would  seem  strong  enough 
to  save  me — and  yet  I  should  be  saved. 

I  went  on  then  with  a  kind  of  fearlessness.  If  I  was  to 
marry  Hugh  I  was  convinced  that  I  should  be  supported ; 
if  not,  I  was  equally  convinced  that  something  would  hold 
me  back. 

"If  anything  should  happen,"  I  said  to  Cissie  Boscobel 
one  day,  "  I  want  you  to  look  after  Hugh." 

The  dawn  seemed  to  break  over  her,  though  she  only 
said,  tremulously: 

"Happen— how?" 

"I  don't  know.  Perhaps  nothing  will.  But  if  it 
does—" 

She  slipped  away,  doubtless  so  as  not  to  hear  more. 

And  then  one  evening,  when  I  was  not  thinking  espe- 
cially about  it,  the  Cloud  came  down  on  the  Mountain; 
the  voice  spoke  out  of  it,  and  my  course  was  made  plain. 

But  before  that  night  I  also  had  received  a  cablegram. 
It  was  from  my  sister  Louise,  to  say  that  the  King  Arthur, 
her  husband's  ship,  had  been  blown  up  in  the  North  Sea, 
and  that  he  was  among  the  lost. 

So  the  call  was  coming  to  me  more  sharply  than  I  had 
yet  heard  it.  With  Lady  Cecilia's  example  in  mind,  I  said 
little  to  those  about  me  beyond  mentioning  the  fact.  I 

382 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

suppose  they  showed  me  as  much  sympathy  as  the  sweep- 
ing away  of  a  mere  brother-in-law  demanded.  They 
certainly  said  they  were  sorry,  and  hinted  that  that  was 
what  nations  let  themselves  in  for  when  they  were  so  rash 
as  to  go  to  war. 

"Think  we'd  ever  expose  our  fellows  like  that?"  was 
Hugh's  comment.  " Not  on  your  life!" 

But  they  didn't  make  a  heroine  of  me  as  they  did  with 
Lady  Cissie;  not  that  I  cared  about  that.  I  only  hoped 
that  the  fact  that  my  brother-in-law's  name  was  in  all  the 
American  accounts  of  the  incident  would  show  them  that 
I  belonged  to  some  one,  and  that  some  one  belonged  to  me. 
If  it  did  I  never  perceived  it.  Perhaps  the  loss  of  a  mere 
captain  in  the  navy  was  a  less  gallant  occurrence  than  the 
death  in  action  of  a  Lord  Leatherhead;  perhaps  we  were 
already  getting  used  to  the  toll  of  war;  but,  whatever 
the  reason,  Lady  Cissie  was  still,  to  all  appearances, 
the  only  sufferer.  Within  a  day  or  two  a  black  dress 
was  my  sole  reminder  that  the  King  Arthur  had  gone 
down;  and,  even  to  Hugh,  I  made  no  further  reference 
to  the  catastrophe. 

And  then  came  the  evening  when,  as  Larry  Strangways 
said  on  my  telling  him  about  it,  "the  fat  was  all  in  the 
fire." 

It  was  the  occasion  of  what  had  become  the  annual  din- 
ner at  Mr.  Brokenshire's  in  honor  of  Mrs.  Billing — a 
splendid  function.  Nothing  short  of  a  splendid  fun^lon 
would  have  satisfied  the  old  lady,  who  had  the  gift  of 
making  even  the  great  afraid  of  her.  The  event  was  the 
more  magnificent  for  the  reason  that,  in  addition  to  the 
mother  of  the  favorite,  a  number  of  brother  princes  of 
finance,  in  Newport  for  conference  with  our  host,  were 
included  among  the  guests.  Of  these  one  was  staying  in 

383 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

the  house,  one  with  the  Jack  Brokenshires,  and  two  at  a 
hotel.  I  was  seated  between  the  two  who  were  at  the 
hotel  because  they  were  socially  unimportant.  Even 
Mr.  Brokenshire  had  sometimes  to  extend  his  domestic 
hospitality  to  business  friends  for  the  sake  of  business, 
when  perhaps  he  should  have  preferred  to  show  his  atten- 
tions in  clubs. 

The  chief  scene,  if  I  may  so  call  it,  was  played  to  the 
family  alone  in  Mildred's  sitting-room,  after  the  guests  had 
gone;  but  there  was  a  curtain-raiser  at  the  dinner-table 
before  the  assembled  company.  I  give  bits  of  the  conver- 
sation, not  because  they  were  important,  but  because  of 
what  they  led  up  to. 

We  were  twenty-four,  seated  on  great  Italian  chairs, 
which  gave  each  of  us  the  feeling  of  being  a  sovereign  on  a 
throne.  It  took  all  the  men  of  the  establishment,  as  well 
as  those  gathered  in  from  the  Jack  Brokenshires'  and  Mrs. 
Rossiter's,  to  wait  on  us,  a  detail  by  which  in  the  end  I 
profited.  The  gold  service  had  been  sent  down  from  the 
vaults  in  New  York,  so  that  the  serving-plates  were  gold, 
as  well  as  the  plates  for  some  of  the  other  courses.  Gold 
vases  and  bowls  held  the  roses  that  adorned  the  table,  and 
gold  spoons  and  forks  were  under  our  hands.  It  was  the 
first  time  I  had  ever  been  able  to  notice  with  my  own  eyes 
how  nearly  the  rich  American  can  rival  the  state  of  kings 
and  emperors. 

It  goes  without  saying  that  all  the  women  had  put  on 
their  best,  and  that  the  jewels  were  as  precious  metals  in 
the  days  of  Solomon;  they  were  "nothing  accounted  of." 
Diamonds  flashed,  rubies  broke  out  in  fire,  and  emeralds 
said  unspeakable  things  all  up  and  down  the  table;  the 
rows  and  ropes  and  circlets  of  pearls  made  one  think  of  the 
gates  of  Paradise.  I  was  the  only  one  not  so  bedecked, 

384 


THE   HIGH   HEART 

getting  that  contrast  of  simplicity  which  is  the  compensa- 
tion of  the  poor.  The  ring  Hugh  had  given  me,  a  sapphire 
set  in  diamonds,  was  my  only  ornament ;  and  yet  the  neat 
austerity  of  my  black  evening  frock  rendered  me  con- 
spicuous. 

It  also  goes  without  saying  that  I  had  no  right  to  be  con- 
spicuous, being  the  person  of  least  consequence  at  the 
board.  Mr.  Brokenshire  not  only  felt  that  himself,  but  he 
liked  me  to  feel  it;  and  he  not  only  liked  me  to  feel  it,  but 
he  liked  others  to  see  that  his  great,  broad  spirit  admitted 
me  among  his  family  and  friends  from  noble  promptings  of 
tolerance.  I  was  expected  to  play  up  to  this  generosity 
and  to  present  the  foil  of  humility  to  the  glory  of  the  other 
guests  and  the  beauty  of  the  table  decorations. 

In  general  I  did  this,  and  had  every  intentidn  of  doing  it 
again.  Nothing  but  what  perhaps  were  the  solecisms  of 
my  immediate  neighbors  caused  my  efforts  to  miscarry. 
I  had  been  informed  by  Mrs.  Brokenshire  beforehand  that 
they  were  socially  dull,  that  one  of  them  was  "awful,"  and 
that  my  powers  would  be  taxed  to  keep  them  in  conversa- 
tion. My  mettle  being  up,  I  therefore  did  my  best. 

The  one  who  was  awful  proved  to  be  a  Mr.  Samuel 
Russky,  whose  claim  to  be  present  sprang  from  the  fact 
that  he  was  a  member  of  a  house  that  had  the  power  to  lend 
a  great  deal  of  money.  He  was  a  big  man,  of  a  mingled 
Slavic  and  Oriental  cast  of  countenance,  and  had  nothing 
more  awful  about  him  than  a  tendency  to  overemphasis. 
On  my  right  I  had  Mr.  John  G.  Thorne,  whose  face  at  a 
glance  was  as  guileless  as  his  name  till  contemplation  re- 
vealed to  you  depth  beyond  depth  of  that  peculiar  astute- 
ness of  which  only  the  American  is  master.  I  am  sure 
that  when  we  sat  down  to  table  neither  of  these  gentlemen 
had  any  intention  of  taking  a  hand  in  my  concerns,  and 

385 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

are  probably  ignorant  to  this  day  of  ever  having  done  so; 
but  the  fact  remains. 

It  begins  with  my  desire  to  oblige  Mrs.  Brokenshire  by 
trying  to  make  the  dinner  a  success.  Having  toi  lift  the 
heaviest  corner,  so  to  speak,  I  gave  myself  to  the  task  first 
with  one  of  my  neighbors  and  then  with  the  other.  .  They 
responded  so  well  that  as  early  as  when  the  terrapin  was 
reached  I  was  doing  it  with  both.  As  there  was  much 
animation  about  the  table,  there  was  nothing  at  that  time 
to  call  attention  to  our  talk. 

Naturally,  it  was  about  the  war.  From  the  war  we 
passed  to  the  attitude  of  the  United  States  toward  the 
struggle;  and  from  that  what  could  I  do  but  glide'to  the 
topics  as  to  which  I  felt  myself  a  mouthpiece  for  Larry 
Strangways?  It  was  a  chance.  Here  were  two  men 
obviously  of  some  influence  in  the  country,  and  neither  of 
them  of  very  strong  convictions,  so  far  as  I  could  judge,  on 
any  subject  but  that  of  floating  foreign  bonds.  As  the 
dust  from  a  butterfly's  wing  might  turn  the  scale  with  one 
or  both  of  them,  I  endeavored  to  throw  at  least  that  much 
weight  on  the  side  of  a  British  and  American  entente. 

At  something  I  said,  Mr.  Russky,  with  the  slightest  hint 
of  a  Yiddish  pronunciation,  complained  that  I  spoke  as  if 
all  Americans  were  "Anglo-Zaxons";  whereas  it  was  well 
known  that  the  "Anglo-Zaxon"  element  among  them  was 
but  a  percentage,  which  was  destined  to  grow  less. 

"I'm  not  putting  it  on  that  ground,"  I  argued,  with 
some  zeal,  taking  up  a  point  as  to  which  one  of  Larry 
Strangways's  letters  had  enlightened  me.  "I  see  well 
enough  that  the  American  ideal  isn't  one  of  nationality, 
but  of  principle.  When  the  federation  of  the  States  was 
completed  it  was  on  the  basis  not  of  a  common  Anglo- 
Saxon  origin,  but  on  that  of  the  essential  unity  of  man- 

386 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

kind.  Mere  nationality  was  left  out  of  the  question. 
All  nations  were  welcomed,  with  the  idea  of  welding 
them  into  one." 

"And  England,"  Mr.  Russky  declared,  somewhat  more 
loudly  than  was  necessary  for  my  hearing  him,  "is  still 
bound  up  in  her  Anglo-Zaxondon." 

"  Not  a  bit  of  it !"  I  returned.  "Her  spirit  is  exactly  the 
same  as  that  of  this  country.  Except  this  country,  where 
is  there  any  other  of  which  the  gates  and  ports  and  homes 
and  factories  have  been  open  to  all  nations  as  hers  have 
been?  They've  landed  on  her  shores  in  thousands  and 
thousands,  without  passports  and  without  restraint,  wel- 
comed and  protected  even  when  they've  been  taking  the 
bread  out  of  the  born  Englishman's  mouth.  Look  at  the 
number  of  foreigners  they've  been  obliged  to  round  up 
since  the  war  began — for  the  simple  reason  that  they'd 
become  so  many  as  to  be  a  peril.  It's  the  same  not  only 
in  the  British  Islands,  but  in  every  part  of  the  British 
Empire.  Always  the  same  reception  for  all,  with  liberty 
for  all.  My  own  country,  in  proportion  to  its  population, 
is  as  full  of  citizens  of  foreign  birth  as  this  is.  They've 
been  fathered  and  mothered  from  the  minute  they  landed 
at  Halifax.  Poles  and  Ruthenians  and  Slovaks  and  Ice- 
landers have  been  given  the  same  advantages  as  ourselves. 
I'm  not  boasting  of  this,  Mr.  Russky.  I'm  only  saying 
that,  though  we've  never  defined  the  principle  in  a  con- 
stitution, our  instinct  toward  mankind  is  the  same  as 
yours." 

It  was  here  Mr.  Thorne  broke  in,  saying  that  sympathy 
in  the  United  States  was  all  for  France. 

"I  can  understand  that,"  I  said.  "You  often  find  in  a 
family  that  the  sympathy  of  each  of  the  members  is  for 
some  one  outside.  But  that  doesn't  keep  them  from  being 

387 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

a  family,  or  from  acting  in  important  moments  with  a 
family's  solidarity." 

"And,  personally,"  Mr.  Thorne  went  on,  "I  don't  care 
for  England." 

I  laughed  politely  in  his  face. 

"And  do  you,  a  business  man,  say  that?  I  thought 
business  was  carried  on  independently  of  personal  regard. 
You  might  conceivably  not  like  Mr.  Warren  or  Mr. 
Casemente" — I  named  the  two  other  banker  guests — "or 
even  Mr.  Brokenshire;  but  you  do  business  with  them  as 
if  you  loved  them,  and  quite  successfully,  too.  In  the 
same  way  the  Briton  and  the  American  might  put  per- 
sonal fancies  out  of  the  question  and  co-operate  for 
great  ends." 

"Ah,  but,  young  lady,"  Mr.  Russky  exclaimed,  so 
noisily  as  to  draw  attention,  "you  forget  that  we're  far 
from  the  scene  of  European  disputes,  and  that  our  wisest 
course  is  to  keep  out  of  them !' ' 

I  fell  back  again  on  what  I  had  learned  from  Larry 
Strangways. 

"But  you're  not  far  from  the  past  of  mankind.  You 
inherit  that  as  much  as  any  European;  and  it  isn't  an  in- 
heritance that  can  be  limited  geographically."  I  still 
quoted  one  of  Larry  Strangways's  letters,  knowing  it  by 
heart.  "Every  Russian  and  German  and  Jew  and  Italian 
and  Scotchman  who  lands  in  New  York  brings  a  portion 
of  it  with  him  and  binds  the  responsibility  of  the  New 
World  more  closely  to  the  sins  of  the  Old.  Oceans  and 
continents  will  not  separate  us  from  sins.  As  we  can 
never  run  away  from  our  past,  Americans  must  help  to 
expiate  what  they  and  their  ancestors  have  done  in  the 
countries  from  which  they  came.  This  isn't  going  to  be  a 
local  war  or  a  twentieth-century  war.  It's  the  struggle 

388 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

of  all  those  who  have  had  to  bear  the  burdens  of  the  world 
against  those  who  have  made  them  bear  them." 

"If  that  was  the  case,"  Mr.  Russky  said,  doubtfully, 
"Americans  would  be  all  on  one  side." 

"They  will  be  all  on  one  side — when  they  see  it.  The 
question  is,  Will  they  see  it  soon  enough?" 

Being  so  interested  I  didn't  notice  that  our  immediate 
neighbors  were  listening,  nor  did  I  observe,  what  Cissie 
Boscobel  told  me  afterward,  that  Hugh  was  dividing  dis- 
quieting looks  between  me  and  his  father.  I  did  try  to 
divert  Mr.  Thorne  to  giving  his  attention  to  Mrs.  Burke, 
who  was  his  neighbor  on  the  right,  but  I  couldn't  make 
him  take  the  hint.  It  was,  in  fact,  he  who  said : 

"We've  too  many  old  grudges  against  England  to  keep 
step  with  her  now." 

I  smiled  engagingly. 

"But  you've  no  old  grudges  against  the  British  Empire, 
have  you?" 

' '  What  do  you  mean  ?' ' 

"You've  no  old  grudges  against  Canada,  or  Australia,  or 
the  West  Indies,  or  New  Zealand,  or  the  Cape?" 

"N-no." 

"  Nor  even  against  Scotland  or  Wales  or  Ireland?" 

"N-no." 

"You  recognize  in  all  those  countries  a  spirit  more  or 
less  akin  to  your  own,  and  one  with  which  you  can  sympa- 
thize?" 

"Y-yes." 

"Then  isn't  that  my  point?  You  speak  of  England, 
and  you  see  the  southern  end  of  an  island  between  the 
North  Sea  and  the  Atlantic;  but  that's  all  you  see.  You 
forget  Scotland  and  Ireland  and  Canada  and  Australia 
and  South  Africa.  You  think  I'm  talking  of  a  country 

389 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

three  thousand  miles  away,  whereas  it  comes  right  up  to 
your  doors.  It's  on  the  borders  of  Maine  and  Michigan 
and  Minnesota,  and  all  along  your  line.  That  isn't  Can- 
ada alone;  it's  the  British  Empire.  It's  the  country  with 
which  you  Americans  have  more  to  do  than  with  any 
other  in  the  world.  It's  the  one  you  have  to  think  of  first. 
You  may  like  some  other  better,  but  you  can't  get  away 
from  having  it  as  your  most  pressing  consideration  the 
minute  you  pass  your  own  frontiers.  That,"  I  declared, 
with  a  little  laugh,  "is  what  makes  my  entente  impor- 
tant." 

' '  Important  for  Englanjl  or  for  America  ?' '  Mr.  Russky , 
as  a  citizen  of  the  country  he  thought  had  most  to  give, 
was  on  his  guard. 

"Important  for  the  world!"  I  said,  emphatically. 
"England  and  America — the  British  Empire  and  the 
United  States — are  both  secondary  in  what  I'm  trying  to 
say.  I  speak  of  them  only  as  the  two  that  can  most  easily 
line  up  together.  When  they've  done  that  the  rest  will 
follow  their  lead.  It's  not  to  be  an  offensive  and  defensive 
alliance,  or  directed  against  any  other  power.  It  would  be 
a  starting-point,  the  beginning  of  world  peace.  It  would 
also  be  an  instance  of  what  could  be  accomplished  in  the 
long  run  among  all  the  nations  of  the  world  by  mutual 
tolerance  and  common  sense." 

As  I  made  a  little  mock  oratorical  flourish  there  was  a 
laugh  from  our  part  of  the  table.  Some  one  sitting  oppo- 
site called  out,  "Good!"  I  distinctly  heard  Mrs.  Billing's 
cackle  of  a  "Brava!"  I  ought  to  say,  too,  that,  afraid  of 
even  the  appearance  of  "holding  forth,"  I  had  kept  my 
tone  lowered,  addressing  myself  to  my  left-hand  com- 
panion. If  others  stopped  talking  and  listened  it  was 
because  of  the  compulsion  of  the  theme.  It  was  a  burning 

390 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

theme.  It  was  burning  in  hearts  and  minds  that  had 
never  given  it  a  conscious  thought;  and,  now  that  for  a 
minute  it  was  out  in  the  open,  it  claimed  them.  True,  it 
was  an  occasion  meant  to  be  kept  free  from  the  serious; 
but  even  in  Newport  we  were  beginning  to  understand  that 
occasions  kept  free  from  the  serious  were  over — perhaps 
for  the  rest  of  our  time. 

After  that  the  conversation  in  our  neighborhood  became 
general.  With  the  exception  of  Hugh,  who  was  not  far 
away,  every  one  joined  in,  aptly  or  inaptly,  as  the  case 
might  be,  with  pros  and  cons  and  speculations  and  anec- 
dotes and  flashes  of  wit,  and  a  far  deeper  interest  than  I 
should  have  predicted.  As  Mrs.  Brokenshire  whispered 
after  we  regained  the  drawing-room,  it  had  made  the  din- 
ner go;  and  a  number  of  women  whom  I  hadn't  known 
before  came  up  and  talked  to  me. 

But  all  that  was  only  the  curtain-raiser.     It  was  not 
till  the  family  were  assembled  in  Mildred's  room  up-stairs 
that  the  real  play  began. 
26 


CHAPTER  XXV 

MILDRED'S  big,  heavily  furnished  room  was  as  softly 
lighted  as  usual.  As  usual,  she  herself,  in  white, 
with  a  rug  across  her  feet,  lay  on  her  couch,  withdrawn 
from  the  rest.  She  never  liked  to  have  any  one  near  her, 
unless  it  was  Hugh;  she  never  entered  into  general  talk. 
When  others  were  present  she  remained  silent,  as  she  did 
on  this  evening.  Whatever  passed  through  her  mind 
she  gave  out  to  individuals  when  she  was  alone  with  them. 

The  rest  of  the  party  were  scattered  about,  standing  or 
sitting.  There  were  Jack  and  Pauline,  Jim  and  Ethel 
Rossiter,  Mrs.  Billing,  Mrs.  Brokenshire,  Cissie  Boscobel, 
who  was  now  staying  with  the  Brokenshires,  and  Hugh. 
The  two  banker  guests  had  gone  back  to  the  smoking- 
room.  As  I  entered,  Mr.  Brokenshire  was  standing  in  his 
customary  position  of  command,  a  little  like  a  pasha  in  his 
seraglio,  his  back  to  the  empty  fireplace.  With  his  hand- 
some head  and  stately  form,  he  would  have  been  a  truly 
imposing  figure  had  it  not  been  for  his  increased  stoutness 
and  the  occasional  working  of  his  face. 

I  had  come  up-stairs  with  some  elation.  The  evening 
might  have  been  called  mine.  Most  of  the  men,  on  re- 
joining us  in  the  drawing-room,  had  sought  a  word  with 
me,  and  those  who  didn't  know  me  inquired  who  I  was. 
I  could  hardly  help  the  hope  that  Mr.  Brokenshire  might 
see  I  was  worth  my  salt,  and  that  on  becoming  a  member 
of  his  family  I  should  bring  my  contribution. 

392 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

But  on  the  way  up-stairs  Hugh  gave  me  a  hint  that  in 
that  I  might  be  mistaken. 

"Well,  little  Alix,  you  certainly  gave  poor  old  dad  a 
shock  this  time." 

"A  shock?"  I  asked,  in  not  unnatural  astonishment. 

' '  Your  fireworks. ' ' 

' '  Fireworks !    What  on  earth  do  you  mean  ?" 

"It's  always  a  shock  when  fireworks  go  off  too  close  to 
you;  and  especially  when  it's  in  church." 

As  we  had  reached  the  door  of  Mildred's  room,  I  searched 
my  conduct  during  dinner  to  see  in  what  I  had  offended. 

It  is  possible  my  entry  might  have  passed  unnoticed  if 
Mrs.  Brokenshire,  with  the  kindest  intentions,  had  not 
come  forward  to  the  threshold  and  taken  me  by  the  hand. 
As  if  making  a  presentation,  she  led  me  toward  the  august 
figure  before  the  fireplace. 

"  Our  little  girl,"  she  said,  in  the  hope  of  doing  me  a  good 
turn,  "distinguished  herself  to-night,  didn't  she?" 

He  must  have  been  stung  to  sudden  madness  by  the 
sight  of  the  two  of  us  together.  In  general  he  controlled 
himself  in  public.  He  was  often  cruel,  but  with  a  quiet 
subtle  cruelty  to  which  even  the  victims  often  didn't 
know  how  to  take  exception.  But  to-night  the  long- 
gathering  furyof  passion  was  incapable  of  further  restraint. 
Behind  it  there  was  all  the  explosive  force  of  a  lifetime  of 
pride,  complacence,  and  self-love.  The  exquisite  creature 
— a  vision  of  soft  rose,  with  six  strings  of  pearls — who  was 
parading  her  bargain,  as  you  might  say,  without  having 
paid  for  it,  excited  him  to  the  point  of  frenzy.  I  saw  later, 
what  I  didn't  understand  at  the  time,  that  he  was  striking 
at  her  through  me.  He  was  willing  enough  to  strike  at 
me,  since  I  was  the  nobody  who  had  forced  herself  into  his 
family;  but  she  was  his  first  aim. 

393 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

Having  looked  at  me  disdainfully,  he  disdainfully 
looked  away. 

"She  certainly  gave  us  an  exhibition!"  he  said,  with  his 
incisive,  whip-lash  quietude. 

Mrs.  Brokenshire  dropped  my  hand. 

"Oh,  Howard!" 

I  think  she  backed  away  toward  the  nearest  chair.  I 
was  vaguely  conscious  of  curious  eyes  in  the  dimness  about 
me  as  I  stood  alone  before  my  critic. 

"I'm  sorry  if  I've  done  anything  wrong,  Mr.  Broken- 
shire,"  I  said,  meekly.  "I  didn't  mean  to." 

He  looked  over  my  head,  speaking  casually,  as  one  who 
takes  no  interest  in  the  subject. 

"All  the  great  stupidities  have  been  committed  by 
people  who  didn't  mean  to — but  there  they  are !" 

I  continued  to  be  meek. 

"  I  didn't  know  I  had  been  stupid." 

"The  stupid  never  do." 

"And  I  don't  think  I  have  been,"  I  added,  with  rising 
spirit. 

Though  there  was  consternation  in  the  room  behind  me, 
Mr.  Brokenshire  merely  said: 

"Unfortunately,  you  must  let  others  judge  of  that." 

"But  how?"  I  insisted.  "If  I  have  been,  wouldn't  it 
be  a  kindness  on  your  part  to  tell  me  in  what  way?" 

He  pretended  not  merely  indifference,  but  reluct- 
ance. 

"Isn't  that  obvious?" 

"  Not  to  me — and  I  don't  think  to  any  one  else." 

"What  do  you  call  it  when  one — you  compel  me  to  speak 
frankly — what  do  you  call  it  when  one  exposes  one's 
ignorance  of — of  fundamental  things  before  a  roomful  of 
people  who've  never  set  eyes  on  one  before?" 

394 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

Since  no  one,  not  even  Hugh,  was  brave  enough  to 
stand  up  for  me,  I  had  to  do  it  for  myself. 

"But  I  didn't  know  I  had." 

"Probably  not.  It's  what  I  warned  you  of,  if  you'll 
take  the  trouble  to  remember.  I  said — or  it  amounted  to 
that — that  until  you'd  learned  the  ways  of  the  people  who 
are  generally  recognized  as  comme  il  faut,  you'd  be  wise  in 
keeping  yourself — unobtrusive." 

"And  may  I  ask  whether  one  becomes  obtrusive 
merely  in  talking  of  public  affairs?" 

"You'll  pardon  me  for  giving  you  a  lesson  before  others; 
but,  since  you  invite  it — " 

"Quite  so,  Mr.  Brokenshire,  I  do  invite  it." 

"Then  I  can  only  say  that  in  what  we  call  good  society 
we  become  obtrusive  in  talking  of  things  we  know  nothing 
about." 

"But  surely  one  can  set  an  idea  going,  even  if  one  hasn't 
sounded  all  its  depths.  And  as  for  the  relations  between 
this  country  and  the  British  Empire — " 

"Well-bred  women  leave  such  subjects  to  statesmen." 

"Yes;  we've  done  so.  We've  left  them  to  statesmen 
and" — I  couldn't  resist  the  temptation  to  say  it — "and 
we've  left  them  to  financiers;  but  we  can't  look  at  Europe 
and  be  proud  of  the  result.  We  women,  well  bred  or 
otherwise,  couldn't  make  things  worse  even  if  we  were  to 
take  a  hand ;  and  we  might  make  them  better." 

He  was  not  moved  from  his  air  of  slightly  bored  indif- 
ference. 

"Then  you  must  wait  for  women  with  some  knowledge 
of  the  subject." 

"But,  Mr.  Brokenshire,  I  have  some  knowledge  of  the 
subject !  Though  I'm  neither  English  nor  American,  I'm 
both.  I've  only  to  shift  from  one  side  of  my  mind  to  the 

395 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

other  to  be  either.  Surely,  when  it  comes  to  the  question 
of  a  link  between  the  two  countries  I  love  I'm  qualified  to 
put  in  a  plea  for  it." 

I  think  his  nerves  were  set  further  on  edge  because  I 
dared  to  argue  the  point,  though  he  would  probably  have 
been  furious  if  I  had  not.  His  tone  was  still  that  of  a  man 
deigning  no  more  than  to  fling  out  an  occasional  stinging 
remark. 

"As  a  future  member  of  my  family,  you're  not  qualified 
to  make  yourself  ridiculous  before  my  friends.  To  take 
you  humorously  was  the  kindest  thing  they  could  do." 

I  saw  an  opportunity. 

"Then  wouldn't  it  be  equally  kind,  sir,  if  you  were  to 
follow  their  example?" 

Mrs.  Billing's  hen-like  crow  came  out  of  the  obscurity : 

"She's  got  you  there!" 

The  sound  incited  him.  He  became  not  more  irritable, 
but  cruder. 

"  Unhappily,  that's  beyond  my  power.  I  have  to  blush 
for  my  son  Hugh." 

Hugh  spoke  out  of  the  darkness,  his  voice  trembling 
with  the  fear  of  his  own  hardihood  in  once  more  braving 
Jove. 

' '  Oh  no,  dad !    You  must  take  that  back. " 

The  father  wheeled  round  in  the  new  direction.  He  was 
losing  command  of  the  ironic  courtesy  he  secured  by  his  air 
of  indifference,  and  growing  coarser. 

"My  poor  boy!  I  can't  take  it  back.  You're  like 
myself — in  that  you  can  only  be  fooled  when  you  put  your 
trust  in  a  woman." 

It  was  Mrs.  Brokenshire's  turn: 

"  Howard — please !" 

In  the  cry  there  was  the  confession  of  the  woman  who 

396 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

has  vowed  and  not  paid,  and  yet  begs  to  be  spared  the 
blame. 

Jack  Brokenshire  sprang  to  his  feet  and  hurried  forward, 
laying  his  hand  on  his  father's  arm. 

"Say,  dad—" 

But  Mr.  Brokenshire  shook  off  the  hand,  refusing  to  be 
placated.  He  looked  at  his  wife,  who  had  risen,  confused- 
ly, from  her  chair  and  was  backing  away  from  him  to  the 
other  side  of  the  room. 

"I  said  poor  Hugh  was  being  fooled  by  a  woman;  and 
he  is.  He's  marrying  some  one  who  doesn't  care  a  hang 
about  him  and  who's  in  love  with  another  man.  He  may 
not  be  the  first  in  the  family  to  do  that,  but  I  merely 
make  the  statement  that  he's  doing  it." 

Hugh  leaped  forward. 

"She's  not  in  love  with  another  man !" 

"Ask  her." 

He  clutched  me  by  the  wrist. 

"You're  not,  are  you?"  he  pleaded.  "Tell  father 
you're  not." 

I  was  so  sorry  for  Hugh  that  I  hardly  thought  of  myself. 
I  was  benumbed.  The  suddenness  of  the  attack  had  been 
like  a  blow  from  behind  that  stuns  you  without  taking 
away  your  consciousness.  In  any  case  Mr.  Brokenshire 
gave  me  no  time,  for  he  laughed  gratingly. 

"  She  can't  do  that,  my  boy,  because  she  is.  Everybody 
knows  it.  I  know  it — and  Ethel  and  Mildred  and  Cissie. 
They're  all  here  and  they  can  contradict  me  if  I'm  saying 
what  isn't  so." 

"But  she  may  not  know  it  herself,"  Mrs.  Billing  croaked. 
"  A  girl  is  often  the  last  to  make  that  discovery." 

"Ask  her." 

Hugh  obeyed,  still  clutching  my  wrist. 
397 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

"  I'm  asking  you,  little  Alix.     You're  not,  are  you  ?" 

I  could  say  nothing.  Apart  from  the  fact  that  I  didn't 
know  what  to  say,  I  was  dumfounded  by  the  way  in  which 
it  had  all  come  upon  me.  The  only  words  that  occurred 
to  me  were : 

"I  think  Mr.  Brokenshire  is  ill." 

Oddly  enough,  I  was  convinced  of  that.  It  was  the  one 
assuaging  fact.  He  might  hate  me,  but  he  wouldn't  have 
made  me  the  object  of  this  mad-bull  rush  if  he  had  been  in 
his  right  mind.  He  was  not  in  his  right  mind;  he  was 
merely  a  blood-blinded  animal  as  he  went  on: 

"Ask  her  again,  Hugh.  You're  the  only  one  she's  been 
able  to  keep  in  the  dark;  but  then" — his  eyes  followed  his 
wife,  who  was  still  slowly  retreating — "but  then  that's 
nothing  new.  She'll  let  you  believe  anything — till  she 
gets  you.  That's  always  the  game  with  women  of  the 
sort.  But  once  you're  fast  in  her  clutches — then,  my  boy, 
lookout!" 

I  heard  Pauline  whisper,  "Jack,  for  Heaven's  sake,  do 
something!" 

Once  more  Jack's  hand  was  laid  on  his  parent's  arm, 
with  his  foolish  "Say,  dad — " 

Once  more  the  restraining  hand  was  shaken  off.  The 
cutting  tones  were  addressed  to  Hugh: 

"You  see  what  a  hurry  she's  been  in  to  be  married, 
don't  you?  How  many  times  has  she  asked  you  to  do  it 
up  quick?  She's  been  afraid  that  you'd  slip  through  her 
fingers."  He  turned  toward  me.  "Don't  be  alarmed, 
my  dear.  We  shall  keep  our  word.  You've  worked  hard 
to  capture  the  position,  and  I  shall  not  deny  that  you've 
been  clever  in  your  attacks.  You  deserve  what  you've 
won,  and  you  shall  have  it.  But  all  in  good  time.  Don't 
rush.  The  armies  in  Europe  are  showing  us  that  you 

398 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

must  intrench  yourself  where  you  are  if  you  want,  in  the 
end,  to  push  forward.     You  push  a  little  too  hard." 

Poor  Hugh  had  gone  white.  He  was  twisting  my  wrist 
as  if  he  would  wring  it  off,  though  I  felt  no  pain  till  after- 
ward. 

4 '  Tell  me !"  he  whispered.  ' '  Tell  me !  You're— you're 
not  marrying  me  for — for  my  money,  are  you?" 

I  could  have  laughed  hysterically. 

"Hugh,  don't  be  an  idiot!"  came,  scornfully,  from  Ethel 
Rossiter. 

I  could  see  her  get  up,  cross  the  room,  and  sit  down  on 
the  edge  of  Mildred's  couch,  where  the  two  engaged  in  a 
whispered  conversation.  Jim  Rossiter,  too,  got  up  and 
tiptoed  his  sleek,  slim  person  out  of  the  room.  Cissie 
Boscobel  followed  him.  They  talked  in  low  tones  at  the 
head  of  the  stairs  outside.  I  found  voice  at  last : 

"No,  Hugh;  I  never  thought  of  marrying  you  for  that 
reason.  I  was  doing  it  only  because  it  seemed  to  me 
right." 

Mr.  Brokenshire  emitted  a  sound,  meant  to  be  a  laugh : 

"Right!    Oh,  my  God!" 

Mrs.  Brokenshire  was  now  no  more  than  a  pale-rose 
shadow  on  the  farther  side  of  the  room,  but  she  came  to  my 
aid: 

"She  was,  Howard.  Please  believe  her.  She  was, 
really!" 

"Thanks,  darling,  for  the  corroboration!  It  comes  well 
from  you.  Where  there's  a  question  of  right  you're  an 
authority." 

Mrs.  Billing's  hoarse,  prolonged  "Ha-a!"  implied  every 
shade  of  comprehension.  I  saw  the  pale-rose  shadow  sink 
down  on  a  sofa,  all  in  a  little  heap,  like  something  shot 
with  smokeless  powder. 

399 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

Hugh  was  twisting  my  wrist  again  and  whispering: 

"Alix,  tell  me.  Speak!  What  are  you  marrying  me 
for?  What  about  the  other  fellow?  Is  it  Strangways? 
Speak!" 

"I've  given  you  the  only  answer  I  can,  Hugh.  If  you 
can't  believe  in  my  doing  right — " 

"What  were  you  in  such  a  hurry  for?  Was  that  the 
reason — what  dad  says — that  you  were  afraid  you  wouldn't 
— hook  me?" 

I  looked  him  hard  in  the  eye.  Though  we  were  speaking 
in  the  lowest  possible  tones,  there  was  a  sudden  stillness  in 
the  room,  as  though  every  one  was  hanging  on  my  answer. 

"Have  I  ever  given  you  cause  to  suspect  me  of  that?" 
I  asked,  after  thinking  of  what  I  ought  to  say. 

Three  words  oozed  themselves  out  like  three  drops  of  his 
own  blood.  They  were  the  distillation  of  two  years' 
uncertainty: 

' '  Well — sometimes — yes. ' ' 

Either  he  dropped  my  wrist  or  I  released  myself.  I  only 
remember  that  I  was  twisting  the  sapphire-and-diamond 
ring  on  my  finger. 

"What  made  you  think  so?"  I  asked,  dully. 

"A  hundred  things — everything!"  He  gave  a  great 
gasp.  "Oh,  little  Alix!" 

Turning  away  suddenly,  he  leaned  his  head  against  the 
mantelpiece,  while  his  shoulders  heaved. 

It  came  to  me  that  this  was  the  moment  to  make  an  end 
of  it  all;  but  I  saw  Mrs.  Rossiter  get  up  from  her  con- 
ference with  Mildred  and  come  forward.  She  did  it 
leisurely,  pulling  up  one  shoulder  of  her  de'collete'  gown  as 
she  advanced. 

" Hugh,  don't  be  a  baby !"  she  said,  in  passing.  "Fath- 
er, you  ought  to  be  ashamed  of  yourself  I" 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

If  the  heavens  had  fallen  my  amazement  might  have 
been  less.  She  went  on  in  a  purely  colloquial  tone,  ex- 
tricating the  lace  of  her  corsage  from  a  spray  of  diamond 
flowers  as  she  spoke: 

"I'll  tell  you  why  she  was  marrying  Hugh.  It  was  for 
two  or  three  reasons,  every  one  of  them  to  her  credit. 
Any  one  who  knows  her  and  doesn't  see  that  must  be  an 
idiot.  She  was  marrying  him,  first,  because  he  was  kind 
to  her.  None  of  the  rest  of  us  was,  unless  it  was  Mrs. 
Brokenshire;  and  she  was  afraid  to  show  it  for  fear  you'd 
jump  on  her,  father.  The  rest  of  us  have  treated  Alix 
Adare  like  brutes.  I  know  I  have." 

"Oh  no!"  I  protested,  though  I  could  scarcely  make 
myself  audible. 

"But  Hugh  was  nice  to  her.  He  was  nice  to  her  from 
the  start.  And  she  couldn't  forget  it.  No  nice  girl 
would.  When  he  asked  her  to  marry  him  she  felt  she  had 
to.  And  then,  when  he  put  up  his  great  big  bluff  of  earn- 
ing a  living — " 

"It  wasn't  a  bluff,"  Hugh  contradicted,  his  face  still 
buried  in  his  hands. 

"Well,  perhaps  it  wasn't,"  she  admitted,  imperturbably. 
"If  you,  father,  hadn't  driven  him  to  it  with  your  he- 
roics— " 

"If  you  call  it  heroics  that  I  should  express  my 
will—" 

"Oh,  your  will!  You  seem  to  think  that  no  one's  got 
a  will  but  you.  Here  we  are,  all  grown  up,  two  of  us  mar- 
ried, and  you  still  try  to  keep  us  as  if  we  were  five  years 
old.  We're  sick  of  it,  and  it's  time  some  of  us  spoke. 
Jack's  afraid  to,  and  Mildred's  too  good;  so  it's  up  to  me 
to  say  what  I  think." 

Mr.  Brokenshire' s  first  shock  having  passed,  he  got 

401 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

back  something  of  his  lordly  manner,  into  which  he  threw 
an  infusion  of  the  misunderstood. 

"And  you've  said  it  sufficiently.  When  my  children 
turn  against  me — " 

"Nonsense,  father!  Your  children  don't  do  anything 
of  the  sort.  We're  perfect  sheep.  You  drive  us  wherever 
you  like.  But,  however  much  we  can  stand  ourselves,  we 
can't  help  kicking  when  you  attack  some  one  who  doesn't 
quite  belong  to  us  and  who's  a  great  deal  better  than  we 
are." 

Mrs.  Billing  crowed  again: 

' '  Brava,  Ethel !    Never  supposed  you  had  the  pluck. ' ' 

Ethel  turned  her  attention  to  the  other  side  of  her 
corsage. 

"Oh,  it  isn't  a  question  of  pluck;  it's  one  of  exaspera- 
tion. Injustice  after  a  while  gets  on  one's  nerves.  I've 
had  a  better  chance  of  knowing  Alix  Adare  than  any  one; 
and  you  can  take  it  from  me  that,  when  it  comes  to  a 
question  of  breeding,  she's  the  genuine  pearl  and  we're 
only  imitations — all  except  Mildred." 

Both  of  Mr.  Brokenshire's  handsome  hands  went  up 
together.  He  took  a  step  forward  as  if  to  save  Mrs. 
Rossiter  from  a  danger. 

"My  daughter!" 

The  pale-rose  heap  on  the  other  side  of  the  room  raised 
its  dainty  head. 

"It's  true,  Howard;  it's  true!    Please  believe  it !" 

Ethel  went  on  in  her  easy  way: 

"  If  Alix  Adare  has  made  any  mistake  it's  been  in  ignor- 
ing her  own  wishes — I  may  say  her  own  heart — in  order 
to  be  true  to  us.  The  Lord  knows  she  can't  have  respected 
us  much,  or  failed  to  see  that,  judged  by  her  standards, 
we're  as  common  as  grass  when  you  compare  it  to  orchids. 

402 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

But  because  she  is  an  orchid  she  couldn't  do  anything 
but  want  to  give  us  back  better  than  she  ever  got  from  us; 
and  so — " 

"Oh  no;  it  wasn't  that !"  I  tried  to  interpose. 

"It's  no  dishonor  to  her  not  to  be  in  love  with  Hugh," 
she  pursued,  evenly.  "She  may  have  thought  she  was 
once;  but  what  girl  hasn't  thought  she  was  in  love  a  dozen 
times?  A  fine  day  in  April  will  make  any  one  think  it's 
summer  already;  but  when  June  comes  they  know  the 
difference.  It  was  April  when  Hugh  asked  her;  and  now 
it's  June.  I'll  confess  for  her.  She  is  in  love  with — " 

"Please!"  I  broke  in. 

She  gave  me  another  surprise. 

"Do  run  and  get  me  my  fan.  It's  over  by  Mildred. 
There's  a  love!" 

I  had  to  do  her  bidding.  The  picture  of  the  room 
stamped  itself  on  my  brain,  though  I  didn't  think  of  it  at 
the  time.  It  seemed  rather  empty.  Jack  had  retired  to 
one  window,  where  he  was  smoking  a  cigarette;  Pauline 
was  at  another,  looking  out  at  the  moonlight  on  the 
water.  Mrs.  Billing  sat  enthroned  in  the  middle,  taking  a 
subordinate  place  for  once.  Mrs.  Brokenshire  was  on  the 
sofa  by  the  wall.  The  murmur  of  Ethel's  voice,  but  no 
words,  reached  me  as  I  stooped  beside  Mildred's  couch  to 
pick  up  the  fan. 

The  invalid  took  my  hand.  Her  voice  had  the  deep,low 
murmur  of  the  sea. 

"  You  must  forgive  my  father." 

"I  do,"  I  was  able  to  say.  "I — I  like  him  in  spite  of 
everything — " 

"And  as  for  my  brother,  you'll  remember  what  we 
agreed  upon  once — that  where  we  can't  give  all,  our  first 
consideration  must  be  the  value  of  what  we  withhold." 

403 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

I  thanked  her  and  went  back  with  the  fan.  As  I  passed 
Mrs.  Billing  she  snapped  at  me,  with  the  enigmatic 
words: 

"You're  a  puss!" 

When  I  drew  near  to  the  group  by  the  fireplace,  Mrs. 
Rossiter  was  saying  to  Hugh : 

"And  as  for  her  marrying  you  for  your  money — well, 
you're  crazy!  I  suppose  she  likes  money  as  well  as  any- 
body else;  but  she  would  have  married  you  to  be  loyal. 
She  would  have  married  you  two  months  ago  if  father  had 
been  willing;  and  if  you'd  been  willing  you  could  now  have 
been  in  England  or  France  together,  trying  to  do  some 
good.  If  a  woman  marries  one  man  when  she's  in  love 
with  another  the  right  or  the  wrong  depends  on  her 
motives.  Who  knows  but  what  I  may  have  done  it  my- 
self? I  don't  say  I  haven't.  And  so — " 

But  I  had  taken  off  the  ring  on  my  way  across  the  room. 
Having  returned  the  fan  to  Ethel,  I  went  up  to  Hugh,  who 
looked  round  at  me  over  his  shoulder. 

"Hugh,  darling,"  I  said,  very  softly,  "I  feel  that  I 
ought  to  give  you  back  this." 

He  put  out  his  hand  mechanically,  not  thinking  of 
what  I  was  about  to  offer.  On  seeing  it  he  drew  back 
his  hand  quickly,  and  the  ring  dropped  on  the  floor.  I 
can  hear  it  still,  rolling  with  a  little  rattle  among  the 
fire-irons. 

In  making  my  curtsy  to  Mr.  Brokenshire  I  raised  my 
eyes  to  his  face.  It  seemed  to  me  curiously  stricken. 
After  all  her  years  of  submission  Mrs.  Rossiter 's  rebellion 
must  have  made  him  feel  like  an  autocrat  dethroned.  I 
repeated  my  curtsy  to  Mrs.  Billing,  who  merely  stared  at 
me  through  her  lorgnette — to  Jack  and  Pauline,  who  took 
no  notice,  who  perhaps  didn't  sec  me — to  Mrs.  Broken- 

404 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

shire,  who  was  again  a  little  rose-colored  heap — and  to 
Mildred,  who  raised  her  long,  white  hand. 

In  the  hall  outside  Cissie  Boscobel  rose  and  came  toward 
me. 

"You  must  look  after  Hugh,"  I  said  to  her,  breathlessly, 
as  I  sped  on  my  way. 

She  did.  As  I  hurried  down  the  stairs  I  heard  her 
saying: 

"  No,  Hugh,  no !    She  wants  to  go  alone." 


POSTSCRIPT 

1AM  writing  in  the  dawn  of  a  May  morning  in  1917. 
Before  me  lies  a  sickle  of  white  beach  some  four  or 
five  miles  in  curve.  Beyond  that  is  the  Atlantic,  a  mirror 
of  leaden  gray.  Woods  and  fields  bank  themselves  in- 
land; here  a  dewy  pasture,  there  a  stretch  of  plowed  earth 
recently  sown  and  harrowed;  elsewhere  a  grove  of  fir  or 
maple  or  a  hazel  copse.  From  a  little  wooden  house  on 
the  other  side  of  the  crescent  of  white  sand  a  pillar  of  pale 
smoke  is  going  straight  up  into  the  windless  air.  In  the 
woods  round  me  the  birds,  which  have  only  just  arrived 
from  Florida,  from  the  West  Indies,  from  Brazil,  are  chir- 
ruping sleepily.  They  will  doze  again  presently,  to  awake 
with  the  sunrise  into  the  chorus  of  full  song.  Halifax  lies 
some  ten  or  twelve  miles  to  the  westward.  This  house  is 
my  uncle's  summer  residence,  which  he  has  lent  to  my 
husband  and  me  for  the  latter's  after-cure. 

I  am  used  to  being  up  at  this  hour,  or  at  any  hour,  owing 
to  my  experience  in  nursing.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  I  am 
restless  with  the  beginning  of  day,  fearing  lest  my  husband 
may  need  me.  He  is  in  the  next  room.  If  he  stirs  I  can 
hear  him.  In  this  room  my  baby  is  sleeping  in  his  little 
bassinet.  It  is  not  the  bassinet  of  my  dreams,  nor  is  this 
the  white-enameled  nursery,  nor  am  I  wearing  a  delicate 
lace  peignoir.  It  is  all  much  more  beautiful  than  that, 
because  it  is  as  it  is.  My  baby's  name  is  John  Howard 

406 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

Brokenshire  Strangways,  though  we  shorten  it  to  Broke, 
which,  in  the  English  fashion,  we  pronounce  Brook. 

You  will  see  why  I  wanted  to  call  him  by  this  name; 
but  for  that  I  must  hark  back  to  the  night  when  I  returned 
the  ring  to  dear  Hugh  Brokenshire  and  fled.  It  is  like  a 
dream  to  me  now,  that  night;  but  a  dream  still  vivid 
enough  to  recall. 

On  escaping  Hugh  and  making  my  way  down-stairs  I 
was  lucky  enough  to  find  Thomas,  my  rosebud  footman 
knight.  Poor  lad!  The  judgment  trumpet  was  sounding 
for  him,  as  for  Franz  Ferdinand  and  Sophie  Chotek  and 
the  rest  of  us.  He  went  back  to  England  shortly  after 
that  and  was  killed  the  next  year  at  the  Dardanelles. 
But  there  he  was  for  the  moment,  standing  with  the  wraps 
of  the  Rossiter  party. 

"Thomas,  call  the  motor,"  I  said,  hurriedly.  "Be 
quick!  I'm  going  home  alone,  and  you  must  come  with 
me.  I've  things  for  you  to  do.  Mr.  Jack  Brokenshire 
will  bring  Mrs.  Rossiter." 

On  the  way  I  explained  my  program  to  him  through  the 
window.  I  had  been  called  suddenly  to  New  York. 
There  was  a  train  from  Boston  to  that  city  which  would 
stop  at  Providence  at  two.  I  thought  there  was  one  from 
Newport  to  Providence  about  twelve-thirty,  and  it  was 
now  a  quarter  past  eleven.  If  there  was  such  a  train  I 
must  take  it ;  if  there  wasn't,  the  motor  must  run  me  up  to 
Providence,  for  which  there  was  still  time.  I  should  delay 
only  long  enough  to  pack  a  suit-case.  For  the  use  I  was 
making  of  him  and  the  chauffeur,  as  well  as  of  the  vehicle, 
I  should  be  responsible  to  my  hosts. 

Both  the  men  being  my  tacitly  sworn  friends,  there  was 
no  questioning  of  my  authority.  I  fell  back,  therefore, 
into  the  depths  of  the  limousine  with  the  first  sense  of 

27  407 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

relief  I  had  had  since  the  day  I  accepted  my  position  with 
Mrs.  Rossiter.  Something  seemed  to  roll  off  me.  I 
realized  all  at  once  that  I  had  never,  during  the  whole  of 
the  two  years,  been  free  from  that  necessity  of  picking  my 
steps  which  one  must  have  in  walking  on  a  tight-rope. 
Now  it  was  delicious.  I  could  have  wished  that  the  drive 
along  Ochre  Point  Avenue  had  been  thirty  times  as  long. 

For  Hugh  I  had  no  feeling  of  compunction.  It  was  so 
blissful  to  be  free.  Cissie  Boscobel,  I  knew,  would  make 
up  to  him  for  all  I  had  failed  to  give,  and  would  give  more. 
Let  me  say  at  once  that  when,  a  few  weeks  later,  the  man 
Lady  Janet  Boscobel  was  engaged  to  had  also  been  killed 
at  the  front,  and  her  parents  had  begged  Cissie  to  go 
home,  Hugh  was  her  escort  on  the  journey.  It  was  the 
beginning  of  an  end  which  I  think  is  in  sight,  of  a  healing 
which  no  one  wishes  so  eagerly  as  I. 

For  the  last  two  years  Cissie  has  been  mothering  Belgian 
children  somewhere  in  the  neighborhood  of  Poperinghe, 
and  Hugh  has  been  in  the  American  Ambulance  Corps 
before  Verdun.  That  was  Cissie's  work,  made  easier,  per- 
haps, by  some  recollection  he  retained  of  me.  When  he  has 
a  few  days'  leave — so  Ethel  Rossiter  writes  me — he  spends 
it  at  Goldborough  Castle  or  Strath-na-Cloid.  I  ran  across 
Cissie  when  for  a  time  I  was  helping  in  first-aid  work  not 
far  behind  the  lines  at  Neuve  Chapelle. 

I  had  been  taking  care  of  her  brother  Rowan — Lord 
Ovingdean,  he  calls  himself  now,  hesitating  to  follow  his 
brother  as  Lord  Leatherhead,  and  using  one  of  his  father's 
other  secondary  titles — and  she  had  come  to  see  him.  I 
hadn't  supposed  till  then  that  we  were  such  friends.  We 
talked  and  talked  and  talked,  and  still  would  have  gone 
on  talking.  I  can  understand  what  she  sees  in  Hugh, 
though  I  could  never  feel  it  for  him  with  her  intensity.  I 

408 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

hope  her  devotion  will  be  rewarded  soon,  and  I  think  it 
will. 

I  had  a  premonition  of  this  as  I  drove  along  Ochre 
Point  Avenue  that  night.  It  helped  me  to  the  joy  of 
liberty,  to  lightness  of  heart.  As  I  threw  the  things  into 
my  suit-case  I  could  have  sung.  Se"raphine,  who  was  up, 
waiting  for  her  mistress,  being  also  my  friend,  promised 
to  finish  my  packing  after  I  had  gone,  so  that  Mrs. 
Rossiter  would  have  nothing  to  do  but  send  my  boxes 
after  me.  It  couldn't  have  been  half  an  hour  after  my 
arrival  at  the  house  before  I  was  ready  to  drive  away  again. 

I  was  in  the  down-stairs  hall,  going  out  to  the  motor, 
when  a  great  black  form  appeared  in  the  doorway.  My 
knees  shook  under  me;  my  happiness  came  down  like  a 
shot  bird.  Mr.  Brokenshire  advanced  and  stood  under 
the  many-colored  Oriental  hall  lantern.  I  clung  for 
support  to  the  pilaster  that  finished  the  balustrade  of 
the  stairway. 

There  was  gentleness  in  his  voice,  in  spite  of  its  whip-lash 
abruptness. 

"Where  are  you  going?" 

I  could  hardly  reply,  my  heart  pounded  with  such  fright. 

"To— to  New  York,  sir." 

"What  for?" 

" Be-because,"  I  faltered,  "I  want  to — to  get  away." 

"Why  do  you  want  to  get  away?" 

"For — for  every  reason." 

"But  suppose  I  don't  want  you  to  go?" 

"  I  should  still  have  to  be  gone." 

He  said,  in  a  hoarse  whisper: 

"  I  want  you  so  stay — and — and  marry  Hugh." 

I  clasped  my  hands. 

"Oh,  but  how  can  I?" 

409 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

"He's  willing  to  forget  what  you've  said — what  my 
daughter  Ethel  has  said;  and  I'm  willing  to  forget 
it,  too." 

"  Do  you  mean  as  to  my  being  in  love  with  some  one 
else?  But  I  am." 

"Not  more  than  you  were  at  the  beginning  of  the 
evening.  You  were  willing  to  marry  him  then . ' ' 

"But  he  didn't  know  then  what  he's  had  to  learn  since. 
I  hoped  to  have  kept  it  from  him  always.  I  may  have 
been  wrong — I  suppose  I  was;  but  I  had  nothing  but  good 
motives." 

There  was  a  strange  drop  in  his  voice  as  he  said,  "  I  know 
you  hadn't." 

I  couldn't  help  taking  a  step  nearer  him. 

"  Oh,  do  you  ?    Then  I'm  so  glad.     I  thought—" 

He  turned  slightly  away  from  me,  toward  a  huge  ugly 
fish  in  a  glass  case,  which  Mr.  Rossiter  believed  to  be  a 
proof  of  his  sportsmanship  and  an  ornament  to  the  hall. 

"I've  had  great  trials,"  he  said,  after  a  pause — "great 
trials!" 

"I  know,"  I  agreed,  softly. 

He  walked  toward  the  fish  and  seemed  to  be  studying  it. 

"They've — they've — broken  me  down." 

"Oh,  don't  say  that,  sir!" 

"  It's  true."  His  finger  outlined  the  fish's  skeleton  from 
head  to  tail.  "The  things  I  said  to-night — "  He  seemed 
hung  up  there.  He  traced  the  fish's  skeleton  back  from 
tail  to  head.  "Have  we  been  unkind  to  you?"  he  de- 
manded, suddenly,  wheeling  round  in  my  direction. 

I  thought  it  best  to  speak  quite  truthfully. 

"Not  unkind,  sir — exactly." 

"But  what  did  Ethel  mean?  She  said  we'd  been  brutes 
to  you.  Is  that  true  ?" 

410 


I  VE  HAD  GREAT  TRIALS  .  .  .  I  VE  ALWAYS   BEEN  MISJUDGED. 
THEY'VE  PUT  ME  DOWN  AS  HARD  AND  PROUD" 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

"  No,  sir;  not  in  my  sense.     I  haven't  felt  it." 

He  tapped  his  foot  with  the  old  imperiousness.  "Then 
—what?" 

We  were  so  near  the  fundamentals  that  again  I  felt  I 
ought  to  give  him  nothing  but  the  facts. 

"I  suppose  Mrs.  Rossiter  meant  that  sometimes  I 
should  have  been  glad  of  a  little  more  sympathy,  and 
always  of  more — courtesy."  I  added:  "From  you,  sir,  I 
shouldn't  have  asked  for  more  than  courtesy." 

Though  only  his  profile  was  toward  me  and  the  hall 
was  dim,  I  could  see  that  his  face  was  twitching.  "And 
— and  didn't  you  get  it?" 

"Do  you  think  I  did?" 

"  I  never  thought  anything  about  it." 

"  Exactly;  but  any  one  in  my  position  does.  Even  if  we 
could  do  without  courtesy  between  equals — and  I  don't 
think  we  can — from  the  higher  to  the  lower — from  you  to 
me,  for  instance — it's  indispensable.  I  don't  remember 
that  I  ever  complained  of  it,  however.  Mrs.  Rossiter 
must  have  seen  it  for  herself." 

"I  didn't  want  you  to  marry  Hugh,"  he  began,  again, 
after  a  long  pause ;  "but  I'd  given  in  about  it.  I  shouldn't 
have  minded  it  so  much  if — if  my  wife — " 

He  broke  off  with  a  distressful,  choking  sound  in  the 
throat,  and  a  twisting  of  the  head,  as  if  he  couldn't  get  his 
breath.  That  passed  and  he  began  once  more. 

"I've  had  great  trials.  .  .  .  My  wife!  .  .  .  And  then 
the  burden  of  this  war.  .  .  .  They  think — they  think  I 
don't  care  anything  about  it  but — but  just  to  make 
money.  .  .  .  I've  always  been  misjudged.  .  .  .  They've 
put  me  down  as  hard  and  proud,  when — " 

"I  could  have  liked  you,  sir,"  I  interrupted,  boldly. 
"I  told  you  so  once,  and  it  offended  you.  But  I've  never 

411 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

been  able  to  help  it.  I've  always  felt  that  there  was 
something  big  and  fine  in  you — if  you'd  only  set  it  free." 

His  reply  to  this  was  to  turn  away  from  his  contempla- 
tion of  the  fish  and  say: 

"Why  don't  you  come  back?" 

I  was  sure  it  was  best  to  be  firm. 

"Because  I  can't,  sir.  The  episode  is — is  over.  I'm 
sorry,  and  yet  I'm  glad.  What  I'm  doing  is  right.  I 
suppose  everything  has  been  right — even  what  happened 
between  me  and  Hugh.  I  don't  think  it  will  do  him  any 
harm — Cissie  Boscobel  is  there — and  it's  done  me  good. 
It's  been  a  wonderful  experience;  but  it's  over.  It  would 
be  a  mistake  for  me  to  go  back  now — a  mistake  for  all  of  us. 
Please  let  me  go,  sir;  and  just  remember  of  me  that  I'm — 
I'm — grateful." 

He  regarded  me  quietly  and — if  I  may  say  so — curiously. 
There  was  something  in  his  look,  something  broken,  some- 
thing defeated,  something,  at  long  last,  kind,  that  made 
me  want  to  cry. 

I  was  crying  inwardly  when  he  turned  about,  without 
another  word,  and  walked  toward  the  door. 

It  must  have  been  the  impulse  to  say  a  silent  good-by 
to  him  that  sent  me  slowly  down  the  hall,  though  I  was 
scarcely  aware  of  moving.  He  had  gone  out  into  the  dark 
and  I  was  under  the  Oriental  lamp,  when  he  suddenly 
reappeared,  coming  in  my  direction  rapidly.  I  would 
have  leaped  back  if  I  hadn't  refused  to  show  fear.  As  it 
was,  I  stood  still.  I  was  only  conscious  of  an  over- 
whelming pity,  terror,  and  amazement  as  he  seized  me  and 
kissed  me  hotly  on  the  brow.  Then  he  was  gone. 

But  it  was  that  kiss  which  made  all  the  difference  in  my 
afterthought  of  him.  It  was  a  confession  on  his  part,  too, 
and  a  bit  of  self-revelation.  Behind  it  lay  a  nature  of 

412 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

vast,  splendid  qualities — strong,  noble,  dominating,  meant 
to  be  used  for  good — all  ruined  by  self-love.  Of  the  Bro- 
kenshire  family,  of  whom  I  am  so  fond  and  to  whom  I  owe 
so  much,  he  was  the  one  toward  whom,  by  some  blind, 
spontaneous,  subconscious  sympathy  of  my  own,  I  have 
been  most  urgently  attracted.  If  his  soul  was  twisted  by 
passions  as  his  face  became  twisted  by  them,  too — well, 
who  is  there  among  us  of  whom  something  of  the  sort  may 
not  be  said ;  and  yet  God  has  patience  with  us  all. 

Howard  Brokenshire  and  I  were  foes,  and  we  fought; 
but  we  fought  as  so  many  thousands,  so  many  millions, 
have  fought  in  the  short  time  since  that  day;  we  fought 
as  those  who,  when  the  veils  are  suddenly  stripped  away, 
when  they  are  helpless  on  the  battle-field  after  the  battle,  or 
on  hospital  cots  lined  side  by  side,  recognize  one  another  as 
men  and  brethren.  And  so,  when  my  baby  was  born  I 
called  him  after  him.  I  wanted  the  name  as  a  symbol — 
not  only  to  myself,  but  to  the  Brokenshire  family — that 
there  was  no  bitterness  in  my  heart. 

At  present  let  me  say  that,  though  pained,  I  was  scarcely 
surprised  to  read  in  the  New  York  papers  on  the  following 
afternoon  that  Mr.  J.  Howard  Brokenshire,  the  eminent 
financier,  had,  on  the  previous  evening,  been  taken 
with  a  paralytic  seizure  while  in  his  motor  on  the  way  from 
his  daughter's  house  to  his  own.  He  was  conscious  when 
carried  indoors,  but  he  had  lost  the  power  of  speech. 
The  doctors  indicated  overwork  in  connection  with  foreign 
affairs  as  the  predisposing  cause. 

From  Mrs.  Rossiter  I  heard  as  each  successive  shock 
overtook  him.  Very  pitifully  the  giant  was  laid  low.  Very 
tenderly — so  Ethel  has  written  me — Mrs.  Brokenshire  has 
watched  over  him — and  yet,  I  suppose,  with  a  terrible 
tragic  expectation  in  her  heart,  which  no  one  but  myself, 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

and  perhaps  Stacy  Grainger,  can  have  shared  with  her. 
Howard  Brokenshire  died  on  that  early  morning  when  his 
country  went  to  war. 

I  stayed  in  New  York  just  long  enough  to  receive  my 
boxes  from  Newport.  On  getting  out  of  the  train  at 
Halifax  Larry  Strangways  received  me  in  his  arms. 

And  this  time  I  saw  no  little  dining-room,  with  myself 
seating  the  guests;  I  saw  no  bassinet  and  no  baby.  I  saw 
nothing  but  him.  I  knew  nothing  but  him.  He  was  all 
to  me.  It  was  the  difference. 

And  not  the  least  of  my  surprises,  when  I  came  to  find 
out,  w  TJ  the  fact  that  it  was  Jim  Rossiter  who  had  sent 
him  there — Jim  Rossiter,  whom  I  had  rather  despised  as  a 
selfish,  cat-like  person,  with  not  much  thought  beyond 
"ridin'  and  racin',"  and  pills  and  medicinal  waters. 
That  was  true  of  him;  and  yet  he  took  the  trouble  to  get 
into  touch  with  Stacy  Grainger — as  a  Brokenshire  only 
by  affinity,  he  could  do  it — to  use  his  influence  at  Washing- 
ton and  Ottawa  to  get  Larry  Strangways  a  week's  leave 
from  Princess  Patricia's  regiment — to  watch  over  my 
movements  in  New  York  and  know  the  train  I  should  take 
— and  wire  to  Larry  Strangways  the  hour  of  my  arrival. 
When  I  think  of  it  I  grow  maudlin  at  the  thought  of  the 
good  there  is  in  every  one. 

We  were  married  within  the  week  at  the  old  church 
which  was  once  a  center  for  Loyalist  refugees  from  New 
England,  beneath  which  some  of  them  lie  buried,  and 
where  I  was  baptized.  When  my  husband  returned  to 
Valcartier  I  went — to  be  near  him — to  Quebec.  After  he 
sailed  for  England  I,  too,  sailed,  and  met  him  there.  I 
kept  near  him  in  England,  taking  such  nursing  training 
as  I  could  while  he  trained  in  other  ways.  I  was  not 
many  miles  away  from  him  when,  in  the  spring  of 

4*4 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

the  next  year,  he  was  badly  cut  up  at  Bois  Grenier, 
near  Neuve  Chapelle. 

He  was  one  of  the  two  or  three  Canadians  to  hold  a 
listening  post  half- way  between  the  hostile  lines,  where  they 
could  hear  the  slightest  movement  of  the  enemy  and  signal 
back.  A  Maxim  swept  the  dugout  at  intervals,  and  now 
and  then  a  shell  burst  near  them.  My  husband  was 
wounded  in  a  leg  and  his  right  arm  was  shattered. 

When  I  was  permitted  to  see  him  at  Amiens  the  arm  had 
been  taken  off  and  the  doctors  were  doing  what  they 
could  to  save  the  leg.  Fortunately,  they  have  succeeded; 
and  now  he  walks  with  no  more  than  a  noticeable  limp. 
He  is  a  captain  in  Princess  Patricia's  regiment  and  a  D.  S.  O. 

Later  he  was  taken  to  the  American  Women's  Hospital, 
at  Paignton,  in  Devonshire,  and  there  again  I  had  the  joy 
of  being  near  him.  I  couldn't  take  care  of  him — I  had  not 
the  skill,  and  perhaps  my  nerve  would  have  failed  me — 
but  I  worked  in  the  kitchen  and  was  sometimes  allowed  to 
take  him  his  food  and  feed  him.  I  think  the  hope,  the 
expectation,  of  my  doing  this  was  what  brought  him  out 
of  the  profound  silence  into  which  he  was  plunged  when  he 
arrived. 

That  was  the  only  sign  of  mental  suffering  I  ever  saw  in 
him.  For  the  physical  suffering  he  never  seemed  to  care. 
But  something  deep  and  far  off,  and  beyond  the  beyond 
of  self-consciousness,  seemed  to  have  been  reached  by 
what  he  had  seen  and  heard  and  done.  It  was  said  of 
Lazarus,  after  his  recall  to  life  by  Christ,  that  he  never 
spoke  of  what  he  had  experienced  in  those  four  days;  and 
I  can  say  as  much  of  my  husband. 

When  his  mind  reverts  to  the  months  in  France  and 
Flanders  he  grows  dumb.  He  grows  dumb  and  his  spirit 
moves  away  from  me.  It  moves  away  from  me  and  from. 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

everything  that  is  of  this  world.  It  is  among  scenes  past 
speech,  past  understanding,  past  imagining.  He  is 
Lazarus  back  in  the  world,  but  with  secrets  in  his  keeping 
which  no  one  may  learn  but  those  who  have  learned  them 
where  he  did. 

When  he  came  to  Paignton  he  was  far  removed  from  us; 
but  little  by  little  he  reapproached.  I  helped  to  restore 
him;  and  then,  when  the  baby  was  born,  the  return  to 
earth  was  quickened. 

To  have  my  baby  I  went  over  to  Torquay,  where  I  had 
six  quiet  contented  weeks  in  a  room  overlooking  the  pea- 
cock-blue waters  of  Tor  Bay,  with  the  kindly  roof  that 
sheltered  my  husband  in  the  distance.  When  I  had  re- 
covered I  went  to  a  cottage  at  Paignton,  where,  when  he 
left  the  hospital,  he  joined  me.  As  the  healing  of  the  leg 
has  been  so  slow,  we  have  been  in  the  lovely  Devon  coun- 
try ever  since,  till,  a  few  weeks  ago,  the  British  Govern- 
ment allowed  us  to  cross  on  the  ship  that  brought  the 
British  Commissioners  to  Washington. 

I  have  just  been  in  to  look  at  him.  He  is  sound  asleep, 
lying  on  his  left  side,  the  coverlet  sagging  slightly  at  the 
shoulder  where  the  right  arm  is  gone.  He  is  getting 
accustomed  to  using  his  left  hand,  but  not  rapidly.  Mean- 
time he  is  my  other  baby;  and,  in  a  way,  I  love  to  have  it 
so.  I  can  be  more  to  him.  In  proportion  as  he  needs  me 
the  bond  is  closer. 

He  is  a  grave  man  now.  The  smile  that  used  to  flash 
like  a  sword  between  us  is  never  there  any  more.  When 
he  smiles  it  is  with  a  long,  slow  smile  that  comes  from  far 
away — perhaps  from  life  as  it  was  before  the  war.  It  is 
a  sweet  smile,  a  brave  one,  one  infinitely  touching;  and 
it  pierces  me  to  the  heart. 

416 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

He  didn't  have  to  forfeit  his  American  citizenship  in 
becoming  one  of  the  glorious  Princess  Pats.  They  were 
glad  to  have  him  on  any  terms.  He  is  an  American  and  I 
am  one.  I  thought  I  became  one  without  feeling  any 
difference.  It  seemed  to  me  I  had  been  born  one,  just  as  I 
had  been  born  a  subject  of  the  dear  old  queen.  But  on 
the  night  of  our  landing  in  Halifax,  a  military  band  came 
and  played  the  "Star-spangled  Banner"  before  my  uncle's 
door,  and  I  burst  into  the  first  tears  I  had  shed  since  my 
marriage. 

Through  everything  else  I  had  been  upheld;  but  at  the 
strains  of  that  anthem,  and  all  it  implied,  I  broke  down 
helplessly.  When  we  went  to  the  door  and  my  husband 
stood  to  listen  to  the  cheering  of  my  friends,  in  his  khaki 
with  the  empty  sleeve,  and  the  fine,  stirring,  noble  air  was 
played  again,  his  eyes,  as  well  as  mine,  were  wet. 

It  recalled  to  me  what  he  said  once  when  I  was  allowed  to 
relieve  the  night  nurse  and  sit  beside  him  at  Paignton. 
He  woke  in  the  small  hours  and  smiled  at  me — his  distant, 
dreamy  smile.  His  only  words — words  he  seemed  to 
bring  with  him  out  of  the  lands  of  sleep,  in  which  perhaps 
he  lived  again  what  now  was  past  for  him — his  only  words 
were: 

"You  know  the  Stars  and  Stripes  were  at  Bois  Grenier." 

"How?"  I  asked,  to  humor  him,  thinking  him  delirious. 

He  laughed — the  first  thing  that  could  be  called  a  laugh 
since  they  had  brought  him  there. 

"Sewn  on  my  undershirt — over  my  heart!  It  will  be 
there  again,"  he  added,  "floating  openly!" 

And  almost  immediately  he  fell  asleep  once  more. 

And,  after  all,  it  is  to  be  there  again — floating  openly. 
The  time-struggle  has  taken  it  and  will  carry  it  aloft, 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

It  has  taken  other  flags,  too — flags  of  Asia;  flags  of  South 
America;  flags  of  the  islands  of  the  seas.  As  my  husband 
predicted  long  ago,  mankind  is  divided  into  just  two 
camps.  So  be  it !  God  knows  I  don't  want  war.  I  have 
been  too  near  it,  and  too  closely  touched  by  it,  ever  to 
wish  again  to  hear  a  cannon-shot  or  see  a  sword.  But  I 
suppose  it  is  all  a  part  of  the  great  War  in  Heaven. 

Michael  and  his  angels  are  fighting,  and  the  dragon  is 
fighting  and  his  angels.  By  that  I  do  not  mean  that  all 
the  good  is  on  one  side  and  all  the  evil  on  the  other. 
God  forbid!  There  is  good  and  evil  on  both  sides.  On 
both  sides  doubtless  evil  is  being  purged  away  and  the 
new,  true  man  is  coming  to  his  own. 

If  I  think  most  of  the  spiritualization  of  France,  and 
the  consecration  of  the  British  Empire,  and  the  coming 
of  a  new  manhood  to  the  United  States,  it  is  because  these 
are  the  countries  I  know  best.  I  should  be  sorry,  I  should 
be  hopeless,  were  I  not  to  believe  that,  above  bloodshed, 
and  cruelty,  and  hatred,  and  lust,  and  suffering,  and  all 
that  is  abominable,  the  Holy  Ghost  is  breathing  on  every 
nation  of  mankind. 

When  it  is  all  over,  and  we  have  begun  to  live  again, 
there  will  be  a  great  Renaissance.  It  will  be  what  the 
word  implies — a  veritable  New  Birth.  The  sword  shall 
be  beaten  to  a  plowshare  and  the  spear  to  a  pruning-hook. 
"Nation  shall  not  lift  up  sword  against  nation,  neither 
shall  they  learn  war  any  more." 

So,  in  this  gray  light,  growing  so  silvery  that  as  day  ad- 
vances it  becomes  positively  golden,  I  turn  to  my  Bible. 
It  is  extraordinary  how  comforting  the  Bible  has  become 
in  these  days  when  hearts  have  been  lifted  up  into  long- 
unexplored  regions  of  terror  and  courage.  Men  and 
women  who  had  given  up  reading  it,  men  and  women  who 

418 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

have  never  read  it  at  all,  turn  its  pages  with  trembling 
hands  and  find  the  wisdom  of  the  ages.  And  so  I  read 
what  for  the  moment  have  become  to  me  its  most  strength- 
ening words: 

In  your  patience  possess  ye  your  Souls.  .  .  .  There  shall  be 
signs  in  the  sun,  and  in  the  moon,  and  in  the  stars;  and  upon 
the  earth  distress  of  nations,  with  perplexity;  the  sea  and  the 
waves  roaring;  men's  hearts  failing  them  for  fear,  and  for  looking 
after  those  things  which  are  coming  on  the  earth ;  for  the  powers 
of  heaven  shall  be  shaken.  .  .  .  And  when  these  things  begin  to 
come  to  pass,  then  look  up,  and  lift  up  your  heads;  for  your 
redemption  draweth  nigh. 

That  is  what  I  believe — that  through  this  travail  of  the 
New  Birth  for  all  mankind  redemption  is  on  the  way. 

It  is  coming  like  the  sunrise  I  now  see  over  the  ocean. 
In  it  are  the  glories  that  never  were  on  land  or  sea.  It 
paints  the  things  which  have  never  entered  into  the  heart 
of  man,  but  which  God  has  prepared  for  them  that  love 
him.  It  is  the  future;  it  is  Heaven.  Not  a  future  that 
no  man  will  live  to  see;  not  a  Heaven  beyond  death  and 
the  blue  sky.  It  is  a  future  so  nigh  as  to  be  at  the  doors; 
it  is  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven  within  us. 

Meantime  there  is  saffron  pulsating  into  emerald,  and 
emerald  into  rose,  and  rose  into  lilac,  and  lilac  into  pearl, 
and  pearl  into  the  great  gray  canopy  that  has  hardly  as 
yet  been  touched  with  light. 

And  the  great  gray  ocean  is  responding  a  fleck  of  color 
here,  a  hint  of  glory  there;  and  now,  stealing  westward, 
from  wavelet  to  wavelet,  stealing  and  ever  stealing,  nearer 
and  still  more  near,  a  wide,  golden  pathway,  as  if  some 
Mighty  One  were  coming  straight  to  me.  "Even  so, 
come,  Lord  Jesus." 

419 


THE    HIGH    HEART 

Even  so  I  look  up,  and  lift  up  my  head.     Even  so  I 

possess  my  soul  in  patience. 

Even  so,  too,  I  think  of  Mildred  Brokenshire's  words: 
"Life  is  not  a  blind  impulse,  working  blindly.     It  is 

a  beneficent,  rectifying  power." 


THE    END 


A     000110571     7 


